Benito Cereno

Herman Melville

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Benito Cereno.

In the year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and
general trader, lay at anchor with a valuable cargo, in the harbor of St. Maria — a small, desert, uninhabited island
toward the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. There he had touched for water.

On the second day, not long after dawn, while lying in his berth, his mate came below, informing him that a strange
sail was coming into the bay. Ships were then not so plenty in those waters as now. He rose, dressed, and went on
deck.

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated
into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the
smelter’s mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled
gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before
storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

To Captain Delano’s surprise, the stranger, viewed through the glass, showed no colors; though to do so upon
entering a haven, however uninhabited in its shores, where but a single other ship might be lying, was the custom among
peaceful seamen of all nations. Considering the lawlessness and loneliness of the spot, and the sort of stories, at
that day, associated with those seas, Captain Delano’s surprise might have deepened into some uneasiness had he not
been a person of a singularly undistrustful good-nature, not liable, except on extraordinary and repeated incentives,
and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, any way involving the imputation of malign evil in man. Whether, in
view of what humanity is capable, such a trait implies, along with a benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and
accuracy of intellectual perception, may be left to the wise to determine.

But whatever misgivings might have obtruded on first seeing the stranger, would almost, in any seaman’s mind, have
been dissipated by observing that, the ship, in navigating into the harbor, was drawing too near the land; a sunken
reef making out off her bow. This seemed to prove her a stranger, indeed, not only to the sealer, but the island;
consequently, she could be no wonted freebooter on that ocean. With no small interest, Captain Delano continued to
watch her — a proceeding not much facilitated by the vapors partly mantling the hull, through which the far matin light
from her cabin streamed equivocally enough; much like the sun — by this time hemisphered on the rim of the horizon,
and, apparently, in company with the strange ship entering the harbor — which, wimpled by the same low, creeping
clouds, showed not unlike a Lima intriguante’s one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indian loop-hole of
her dusk saya-y-manta.

It might have been but a deception of the vapors, but, the longer the stranger was watched the more singular
appeared her manoeuvres. Ere long it seemed hard to decide whether she meant to come in or no — what she wanted, or
what she was about. The wind, which had breezed up a little during the night, was now extremely light and baffling,
which the more increased the apparent uncertainty of her movements. Surmising, at last, that it might be a ship in
distress, Captain Delano ordered his whale-boat to be dropped, and, much to the wary opposition of his mate, prepared
to board her, and, at the least, pilot her in. On the night previous, a fishing-party of the seamen had gone a long
distance to some detached rocks out of sight from the sealer, and, an hour or two before daybreak, had returned, having
met with no small success. Presuming that the stranger might have been long off soundings, the good captain put several
baskets of the fish, for presents, into his boat, and so pulled away. From her continuing too near the sunken reef,
deeming her in danger, calling to his men, he made all haste to apprise those on board of their situation. But, some
time ere the boat came up, the wind, light though it was, having shifted, had headed the vessel off, as well as partly
broken the vapors from about her.

Upon gaining a less remote view, the ship, when made signally visible on the verge of the leaden-hued swells, with
the shreds of fog here and there raggedly furring her, appeared like a white-washed monastery after a thunder-storm,
seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees. But it was no purely fanciful resemblance which now, for a moment,
almost led Captain Delano to think that nothing less than a ship-load of monks was before him. Peering over the
bulwarks were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while, fitfully revealed through the
open port-holes, other dark moving figures were dimly descried, as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters.

Upon a still nigher approach, this appearance was modified, and the true character of the vessel was plain — a
Spanish merchantman of the first class, carrying negro slaves, amongst other valuable freight, from one colonial port
to another. A very large, and, in its time, a very fine vessel, such as in those days were at intervals encountered
along that main; sometimes superseded Acapulco treasure-ships, or retired frigates of the Spanish king’s navy, which,
like superannuated Italian palaces, still, under a decline of masters, preserved signs of former state.

As the whale-boat drew more and more nigh, the cause of the peculiar pipe-clayed aspect of the stranger was seen in
the slovenly neglect pervading her. The spars, ropes, and great part of the bulwarks, looked woolly, from long
unacquaintance with the scraper, tar, and the brush. Her keel seemed laid, her ribs put together, and she launched,
from Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones.

In the present business in which she was engaged, the ship’s general model and rig appeared to have undergone no
material change from their original warlike and Froissart pattern. However, no guns were seen.

The tops were large, and were railed about with what had once been octagonal net-work, all now in sad disrepair.
These tops hung overhead like three ruinous aviaries, in one of which was seen, perched, on a ratlin, a white noddy, a
strange fowl, so called from its lethargic, somnambulistic character, being frequently caught by hand at sea. Battered
and mouldy, the castellated forecastle seemed some ancient turret, long ago taken by assault, and then left to decay.
Toward the stern, two high-raised quarter galleries — the balustrades here and there covered with dry, tindery sea-moss
— opening out from the unoccupied state-cabin, whose dead-lights, for all the mild weather, were hermetically closed
and calked — these tenantless balconies hung over the sea as if it were the grand Venetian canal. But the principal
relic of faded grandeur was the ample oval of the shield-like stern-piece, intricately carved with the arms of Castile
and Leon, medallioned about by groups of mythological or symbolical devices; uppermost and central of which was a dark
satyr in a mask, holding his foot on the prostrate neck of a writhing figure, likewise masked.

Whether the ship had a figure-head, or only a plain beak, was not quite certain, owing to canvas wrapped about that
part, either to protect it while undergoing a refurbishing, or else decently to hide its decay. Rudely painted or
chalked, as in a sailor freak, along the forward side of a sort of pedestal below the canvas, was the sentence,
“Seguid vuestro jefe” (follow your leader); while upon the tarnished headboards, near by, appeared, in stately
capitals, once gilt, the ship’s name, “SAN DOMINICK,” each letter streakingly corroded with tricklings of copper-spike
rust; while, like mourning weeds, dark festoons of sea-grass slimily swept to and fro over the name, with every
hearse-like roll of the hull.

As, at last, the boat was hooked from the bow along toward the gangway amidship, its keel, while yet some inches
separated from the hull, harshly grated as on a sunken coral reef. It proved a huge bunch of conglobated barnacles
adhering below the water to the side like a wen — a token of baffling airs and long calms passed somewhere in those
seas.

Climbing the side, the visitor was at once surrounded by a clamorous throng of whites and blacks, but the latter
outnumbering the former more than could have been expected, negro transportation-ship as the stranger in port was. But,
in one language, and as with one voice, all poured out a common tale of suffering; in which the negresses, of whom
there were not a few, exceeded the others in their dolorous vehemence. The scurvy, together with the fever, had swept
off a great part of their number, more especially the Spaniards. Off Cape Horn they had narrowly escaped shipwreck;
then, for days together, they had lain tranced without wind; their provisions were low; their water next to none; their
lips that moment were baked.

While Captain Delano was thus made the mark of all eager tongues, his one eager glance took in all faces, with every
other object about him.

Always upon first boarding a large and populous ship at sea, especially a foreign one, with a nondescript crew such
as Lascars or Manilla men, the impression varies in a peculiar way from that produced by first entering a strange house
with strange inmates in a strange land. Both house and ship — the one by its walls and blinds, the other by its high
bulwarks like ramparts — hoard from view their interiors till the last moment: but in the case of the ship there is
this addition; that the living spectacle it contains, upon its sudden and complete disclosure, has, in contrast with
the blank ocean which zones it, something of the effect of enchantment. The ship seems unreal; these strange costumes,
gestures, and faces, but a shadowy tableau just emerged from the deep, which directly must receive back what it
gave.

Perhaps it was some such influence, as above is attempted to be described, which, in Captain Delano’s mind,
heightened whatever, upon a staid scrutiny, might have seemed unusual; especially the conspicuous figures of four
elderly grizzled negroes, their heads like black, doddered willow tops, who, in venerable contrast to the tumult below
them, were couched, sphynx-like, one on the starboard cat-head, another on the larboard, and the remaining pair face to
face on the opposite bulwarks above the main-chains. They each had bits of unstranded old junk in their hands, and,
with a sort of stoical self-content, were picking the junk into oakum, a small heap of which lay by their sides. They
accompanied the task with a continuous, low, monotonous, chant; droning and drilling away like so many gray-headed
bag-pipers playing a funeral march.

The quarter-deck rose into an ample elevated poop, upon the forward verge of which, lifted, like the oakum-pickers,
some eight feet above the general throng, sat along in a row, separated by regular spaces, the cross-legged figures of
six other blacks; each with a rusty hatchet in his hand, which, with a bit of brick and a rag, he was engaged like a
scullion in scouring; while between each two was a small stack of hatchets, their rusted edges turned forward awaiting
a like operation. Though occasionally the four oakum-pickers would briefly address some person or persons in the crowd
below, yet the six hatchet-polishers neither spoke to others, nor breathed a whisper among themselves, but sat intent
upon their task, except at intervals, when, with the peculiar love in negroes of uniting industry with pastime, two and
two they sideways clashed their hatchets together,’ like cymbals, with a barbarous din. All six, unlike the generality,
had the raw aspect of unsophisticated Africans.

But that first comprehensive glance which took in those ten figures, with scores less conspicuous, rested but an
instant upon them, as, impatient of the hubbub of voices, the visitor turned in quest of whomsoever it might be that
commanded the ship.

But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own case among his suffering charge, or else in despair of
restraining it for the time, the Spanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved-looking, and rather young man to a stranger’s
eye, dressed with singular richness, but bearing plain traces of recent sleepless cares and disquietudes, stood
passively by, leaning against the main-mast, at one moment casting a dreary, spiritless look upon his excited people,
at the next an unhappy glance toward his visitor. By his side stood a black of small stature, in whose rude face, as
occasionally, like a shepherd’s dog, he mutely turned it up into the Spaniard’s, sorrow and affection were equally
blended.

Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to the Spaniard, assuring him of his sympathies, and offering
to render whatever assistance might be in his power. To which the Spaniard returned for the present but grave and
ceremonious acknowledgments, his national formality dusked by the saturnine mood of ill-health.

But losing no time in mere compliments, Captain Delano, returning to the gangway, had his basket of fish brought up;
and as the wind still continued light, so that some hours at least must elapse ere the ship could be brought to the
anchorage, he bade his men return to the sealer, and fetch back as much water as the whale-boat could carry, with
whatever soft bread the steward might have, all the remaining pumpkins on board, with a box of sugar, and a dozen of
his private bottles of cider.

Not many minutes after the boat’s pushing off, to the vexation of all, the wind entirely died away, and the tide
turning, began drifting back the ship helplessly seaward. But trusting this would not long last, Captain Delano sought,
with good hopes, to cheer up the strangers, feeling no small satisfaction that, with persons in their condition, he
could — thanks to his frequent voyages along the Spanish main — converse with some freedom in their native tongue.

While left alone with them, he was not long in observing some things tending to heighten his first impressions; but
surprise was lost in pity, both for the Spaniards and blacks, alike evidently reduced from scarcity of water and
provisions; while long-continued suffering seemed to have brought out the less good-natured qualities of the negroes,
besides, at the same time, impairing the Spaniard’s authority over them. But, under the circumstances, precisely this
condition of things was to have been anticipated. In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing
more relaxes good order than misery. Still, Captain Delano was not without the idea, that had Benito Cereno been a man
of greater energy, misrule would hardly have come to the present pass. But the debility, constitutional or induced by
hardships, bodily and mental, of the Spanish captain, was too obvious to be overlooked. A prey to settled dejection, as
if long mocked with hope he would not now indulge it, even when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day,
or evening at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for his people, and a brother captain to counsel and
befriend, seemed in no perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if not still more seriously
affected. Shut up in these oaken walls, chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed him, like
some hypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times suddenly pausing, starting, or staring, biting his lip, biting
his finger-nail, flushing, paling, twitching his beard, with other symptoms of an absent or moody mind. This
distempered spirit was lodged, as before hinted, in as distempered a frame. He was rather tall, but seemed never to
have been robust, and now with nervous suffering was almost worn to a skeleton. A tendency to some pulmonary complaint
appeared to have been lately confirmed. His voice was like that of one with lungs half gone — hoarsely suppressed, a
husky whisper. No wonder that, as in this state he tottered about, his private servant apprehensively followed him.
Sometimes the negro gave his master his arm, or took his handkerchief out of his pocket for him; performing these and
similar offices with that affectionate zeal which transmutes into something filial or fraternal acts in themselves but
menial; and which has gained for the negro the repute of making the most pleasing body-servant in the world; one, too,
whom a master need be on no stiffly superior terms with, but may treat with familiar trust; less a servant than a
devoted companion.

Marking the noisy indocility of the blacks in general, as well as what seemed the sullen inefficiency of the whites
it was not without humane satisfaction that Captain Delano witnessed the steady good conduct of Babo.

But the good conduct of Babo, hardly more than the ill-behavior of others, seemed to withdraw the half-lunatic Don
Benito from his cloudy languor. Not that such precisely was the impression made by the Spaniard on the mind of his
visitor. The Spaniard’s individual unrest was, for the present, but noted as a conspicuous feature in the ship’s
general affliction. Still, Captain Delano was not a little concerned at what he could not help taking for the time to
be Don Benito’s unfriendly indifference towards himself. The Spaniard’s manner, too, conveyed a sort of sour and gloomy
disdain, which he seemed at no pains to disguise. But this the American in charity ascribed to the harassing effects of
sickness, since, in former instances, he had noted that there are peculiar natures on whom prolonged physical suffering
seems to cancel every social instinct of kindness; as if, forced to black bread themselves, they deemed it but equity
that each person coming nigh them should, indirectly, by some slight or affront, be made to partake of their fare.

But ere long Captain Delano bethought him that, indulgent as he was at the first, in judging the Spaniard, he might
not, after all, have exercised charity enough. At bottom it was Don Benito’s reserve which displeased him; but the same
reserve was shown towards all but his faithful personal attendant. Even the formal reports which, according to
sea-usage, were, at stated times, made to him by some petty underling, either a white, mulatto or black, he hardly had
patience enough to listen to, without betraying contemptuous aversion. His manner upon such occasions was, in its
degree, not unlike that which might be supposed to have been his imperial countryman’s, Charles V., just previous to
the anchoritish retirement of that monarch from the throne.

This splenetic disrelish of his place was evinced in almost every function pertaining to it. Proud as he was moody,
he condescended to no personal mandate. Whatever special orders were necessary, their delivery was delegated to his
body-servant, who in turn transferred them to their ultimate destination, through runners, alert Spanish boys or slave
boys, like pages or pilot-fish within easy call continually hovering round Don Benito. So that to have beheld this
undemonstrative invalid gliding about, apathetic and mute, no landsman could have dreamed that in him was lodged a
dictatorship beyond which, while at sea, there was no earthly appeal.

Thus, the Spaniard, regarded in his reserve, seemed the involuntary victim of mental disorder. But, in fact, his
reserve might, in some degree, have proceeded from design. If so, then here was evinced the unhealthy climax of that
icy though conscientious policy, more or less adopted by all commanders of large ships, which, except in signal
emergencies, obliterates alike the manifestation of sway with every trace of sociality; transforming the man into a
block, or rather into a loaded cannon, which, until there is call for thunder, has nothing to say.

Viewing him in this light, it seemed but a natural token of the perverse habit induced by a long course of such hard
self-restraint, that, notwithstanding the present condition of his ship, the Spaniard should still persist in a
demeanor, which, however harmless, or, it may be, appropriate, in a well-appointed vessel, such as the San Dominick
might have been at the outset of the voyage, was anything but judicious now. But the Spaniard, perhaps, thought that it
was with captains as with gods: reserve, under all events, must still be their cue. But probably this appearance of
slumbering dominion might have been but an attempted disguise to conscious imbecility — not deep policy, but shallow
device. But be all this as it might, whether Don Benito’s manner was designed or not, the more Captain Delano noted its
pervading reserve, the less he felt uneasiness at any particular manifestation of that reserve towards himself.

Neither were his thoughts taken up by the captain alone. Wonted to the quiet orderliness of the sealer’s comfortable
family of a crew, the noisy confusion of the San Dominick’s suffering host repeatedly challenged his eye. Some
prominent breaches, not only of discipline but of decency, were observed. These Captain Delano could not but ascribe,
in the main, to the absence of those subordinate deck-officers to whom, along with higher duties, is intrusted what may
be styled the police department of a populous ship. True, the old oakum-pickers appeared at times to act the part of
monitorial constables to their countrymen, the blacks; but though occasionally succeeding in allaying trifling
outbreaks now and then between man and man, they could do little or nothing toward establishing general quiet. The San
Dominick was in the condition of a transatlantic emigrant ship, among whose multitude of living freight are some
individuals, doubtless, as little troublesome as crates and bales; but the friendly remonstrances of such with their
ruder companions are of not so much avail as the unfriendly arm of the mate. What the San Dominick wanted was, what the
emigrant ship has, stern superior officers. But on these decks not so much as a fourth-mate was to be seen.

The visitor’s curiosity was roused to learn the particulars of those mishaps which had brought about such
absenteeism, with its consequences; because, though deriving some inkling of the voyage from the wails which at the
first moment had greeted him, yet of the details no clear understanding had been had. The best account would,
doubtless, be given by the captain. Yet at first the visitor was loth to ask it, unwilling to provoke some distant
rebuff. But plucking up courage, he at last accosted Don Benito, renewing the expression of his benevolent interest,
adding, that did he (Captain Delano) but know the particulars of the ship’s misfortunes, he would, perhaps, be better
able in the end to relieve them. Would Don Benito favor him with the whole story.

Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interfered with, vacantly stared at his visitor, and
ended by looking down on the deck. He maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almost equally
disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him, walking forward to accost one of the Spanish
seamen for the desired information. But he had hardly gone five paces, when, with a sort of eagerness, Don Benito
invited him back, regretting his momentary absence of mind, and professing readiness to gratify him.

While most part of the story was being given, the two captains stood on the after part of the main-deck, a
privileged spot, no one being near but the servant.

“It is now a hundred and ninety days,” began the Spaniard, in his husky whisper, “that this ship, well officered and
well manned, with several cabin passengers — some fifty Spaniards in all — sailed from Buenos Ayres bound to Lima, with
a general cargo, hardware, Paraguay tea and the like — and,” pointing forward, “that parcel of negroes, now not more
than a hundred and fifty, as you see, but then numbering over three hundred souls. Off Cape Horn we had heavy gales. In
one moment, by night, three of my best officers, with fifteen sailors, were lost, with the main-yard; the spar snapping
under them in the slings, as they sought, with heavers, to beat down the icy sail. To lighten the hull, the heavier
sacks of mata were thrown into the sea, with most of the water-pipes lashed on deck at the time. And this last
necessity it was, combined with the prolonged detections afterwards experienced, which eventually brought about our
chief causes of suffering. When —”

Here there was a sudden fainting attack of his cough, brought on, no doubt, by his mental distress. His servant
sustained him, and drawing a cordial from his pocket placed it to his lips. He a little revived. But unwilling to leave
him unsupported while yet imperfectly restored, the black with one arm still encircled his master, at the same time
keeping his eye fixed on his face, as if to watch for the first sign of complete restoration, or relapse, as the event
might prove.

The Spaniard proceeded, but brokenly and obscurely, as one in a dream.

“— Oh, my God! rather than pass through what I have, with joy I would have hailed the most terrible gales; but
—”

His cough returned and with increased violence; this subsiding; with reddened lips and closed eyes he fell heavily
against his supporter.

“His mind wanders. He was thinking of the plague that followed the gales,” plaintively sighed the servant; “my poor,
poor master!” wringing one hand, and with the other wiping the mouth. “But be patient, Señor,” again turning to Captain
Delano, “these fits do not last long; master will soon be himself.”

Don Benito reviving, went on; but as this portion of the story was very brokenly delivered, the substance only will
here be set down.

It appeared that after the ship had been many days tossed in storms off the Cape, the scurvy broke out, carrying off
numbers of the whites and blacks. When at last they had worked round into the Pacific, their spars and sails were so
damaged, and so inadequately handled by the surviving mariners, most of whom were become invalids, that, unable to lay
her northerly course by the wind, which was powerful, the unmanageable ship, for successive days and nights, was blown
northwestward, where the breeze suddenly deserted her, in unknown waters, to sultry calms. The absence of the
water-pipes now proved as fatal to life as before their presence had menaced it. Induced, or at least aggravated, by
the more than scanty allowance of water, a malignant fever followed the scurvy; with the excessive heat of the
lengthened calm, making such short work of it as to sweep away, as by billows, whole families of the Africans, and a
yet larger number, proportionably, of the Spaniards, including, by a luckless fatality, every remaining officer on
board. Consequently, in the smart west winds eventually following the calm, the already rent sails, having to be simply
dropped, not furled, at need, had been gradually reduced to the beggars’ rags they were now. To procure substitutes for
his lost sailors, as well as supplies of water and sails, the captain, at the earliest opportunity, had made for
Baldivia, the southernmost civilized port of Chili and South America; but upon nearing the coast the thick weather had
prevented him from so much as sighting that harbor. Since which period, almost without a crew, and almost without
canvas and almost without water, and, at intervals giving its added dead to the sea, the San Dominick had been
battle-dored about by contrary winds, inveigled by currents, or grown weedy in calms. Like a man lost in woods, more
than once she had doubled upon her own track.

“But throughout these calamities,” huskily continued Don Benito, painfully turning in the half embrace of his
servant, “I have to thank those negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearing unruly, have, indeed,
conducted themselves with less of restlessness than even their owner could have thought possible under such
circumstances.”

Here he again fell faintly back. Again his mind wandered; but he rallied, and less obscurely proceeded.

“Yes, their owner was quite right in assuring me that no fetters would be needed with his blacks; so that while, as
is wont in this transportation, those negroes have always remained upon deck — not thrust below, as in the Guinea-men —
they have, also, from the beginning, been freely permitted to range within given bounds at their pleasure.”

Once more the faintness returned — his mind roved — but, recovering, he resumed:

“But it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my own preservation, but likewise to him, chiefly, the merit
is due, of pacifying his more ignorant brethren, when at intervals tempted to murmurings.”

“Ah, master,” sighed the black, bowing his face, “don’t speak of me; Babo is nothing; what Babo has done was but
duty.”

As master and man stood before him, the black upholding the white, Captain Delano could not but bethink him of the
beauty of that relationship which could present such a spectacle of fidelity on the one hand and confidence on the
other. The scene was heightened by, the contrast in dress, denoting their relative positions. The Spaniard wore a loose
Chili jacket of dark velvet; white small-clothes and stockings, with silver buckles at the knee and instep; a
high-crowned sombrero, of fine grass; a slender sword, silver mounted, hung from a knot in his sash — the last being an
almost invariable adjunct, more for utility than ornament, of a South American gentleman’s dress to this hour.
Excepting when his occasional nervous contortions brought about disarray, there was a certain precision in his attire
curiously at variance with the unsightly disorder around; especially in the belittered Ghetto, forward of the
main-mast, wholly occupied by the blacks.

The servant wore nothing but wide trowsers, apparently, from their coarseness and patches, made out of some old
topsail; they were clean, and confined at the waist by a bit of unstranded rope, which, with his composed, deprecatory
air at times, made him look something like a begging friar of St. Francis.

However unsuitable for the time and place, at least in the blunt-thinking American’s eyes, and however strangely
surviving in the midst of all his afflictions, the toilette of Don Benito might not, in fashion at least, have gone
beyond the style of the day among South Americans of his class. Though on the present voyage sailing from Buenos Ayres,
he had avowed himself a native and resident of Chili, whose inhabitants had not so generally adopted the plain coat and
once plebeian pantaloons; but, with a becoming modification, adhered to their provincial costume, picturesque as any in
the world. Still, relatively to the pale history of the voyage, and his own pale face, there seemed something so
incongruous in the Spaniard’s apparel, as almost to suggest the image of an invalid courtier tottering about London
streets in the time of the plague.

The portion of the narrative which, perhaps, most excited interest, as well as some surprise, considering the
latitudes in question, was the long calms spoken of, and more particularly the ship’s so long drifting about. Without
communicating the opinion, of course, the American could not but impute at least part of the detentions both to clumsy
seamanship and faulty navigation. Eying Don Benito’s small, yellow hands, he easily inferred that the young captain had
not got into command at the hawse-hole, but the cabin-window; and if so, why wonder at incompetence, in youth,
sickness, and gentility united?

But drowning criticism in compassion, after a fresh repetition of his sympathies, Captain Delano, having heard out
his story, not only engaged, as in the first place, to see Don Benito and his people supplied in their immediate bodily
needs, but, also, now farther promised to assist him in procuring a large permanent supply of water, as well as some
sails and rigging; and, though it would involve no small embarrassment to himself, yet he would spare three of his best
seamen for temporary deck officers; so that without delay the ship might proceed to Conception, there fully to refit
for Lima, her destined port.

Such generosity was not without its effect, even upon the invalid. His face lighted up; eager and hectic, he met the
honest glance of his visitor. With gratitude he seemed overcome.

“This excitement is bad for master,” whispered the servant, taking his arm, and with soothing words gently drawing
him aside.

When Don Benito returned, the American was pained to observe that his hopefulness, like the sudden kindling in his
cheek, was but febrile and transient.

Ere long, with a joyless mien, looking up towards the poop, the host invited his guest to accompany him there, for
the benefit of what little breath of wind might be stirring.

As, during the telling of the story, Captain Delano had once or twice started at the occasional cymballing of the
hatchet-polishers, wondering why such an interruption should be allowed, especially in that part of the ship, and in
the ears of an invalid; and moreover, as the hatchets had anything but an attractive look, and the handlers of them
still less so, it was, therefore, to tell the truth, not without some lurking reluctance, or even shrinking, it may be,
that Captain Delano, with apparent complaisance, acquiesced in his host’s invitation. The more so, since, with an
untimely caprice of punctilio, rendered distressing by his cadaverous aspect, Don Benito, with Castilian bows, solemnly
insisted upon his guest’s preceding him up the ladder leading to the elevation; where, one on each side of the last
step, sat for armorial supporters and sentries two of the ominous file. Gingerly enough stepped good Captain Delano
between them, and in the instant of leaving them behind, like one running the gauntlet, he felt an apprehensive twitch
in the calves of his legs.

But when, facing about, he saw the whole file, like so many organ-grinders, still stupidly intent on their work,
unmindful of everything beside, he could not but smile at his late fidgety panic.

Presently, while standing with his host, looking forward upon the decks below, he was struck by one of those
instances of insubordination previously alluded to. Three black boys, with two Spanish boys, were sitting together on
the hatches, scraping a rude wooden platter, in which some scanty mess had recently been cooked. Suddenly, one of the
black boys, enraged at a word dropped by one of his white companions, seized a knife, and, though called to forbear by
one of the oakum-pickers, struck the lad over the head, inflicting a gash from which blood flowed.

In amazement, Captain Delano inquired what this meant. To which the pale Don Benito dully muttered, that it was
merely the sport of the lad.

At these words the Spaniard turned upon the American one of his sudden, staring, half-lunatic looks; then, relapsing
into his torpor, answered, “Doubtless, doubtless, Señor.”

Is it, thought Captain Delano, that this hapless man is one of those paper captains I’ve known, who by policy wink
at what by power they cannot put down? I know no sadder sight than a commander who has little of command but the
name.

“I should think, Don Benito,” he now said, glancing towards the oakum-picker who had sought to interfere with the
boys, “that you would find it advantageous to keep all your blacks employed, especially the younger ones, no matter at
what useless task, and no matter what happens to the ship. Why, even with my little band, I find such a course
indispensable. I once kept a crew on my quarter-deck thrumming mats for my cabin, when, for three days, I had given up
my ship — mats, men, and all — for a speedy loss, owing to the violence of a gale, in which we could do nothing but
helplessly drive before it.”

“Doubtless, doubtless,” muttered Don Benito.

“But,” continued Captain Delano, again glancing upon the oakum-pickers and then at the hatchet-polishers, near by,
“I see you keep some, at least, of your host employed.”

“Yes,” was again the vacant response.

“Those old men there, shaking their pows from their pulpits,” continued Captain Delano, pointing to the
oakum-pickers, “seem to act the part of old dominies to the rest, little heeded as their admonitions are at times. Is
this voluntary on their part, Don Benito, or have you appointed them shepherds to your flock of black sheep?”

“What posts they fill, I appointed them,” rejoined the Spaniard, in an acrid tone, as if resenting some supposed
satiric reflection.

“And these others, these Ashantee conjurors here,” continued Captain Delano, rather uneasily eying the brandished
steel of the hatchet-polishers, where, in spots, it had been brought to a shine, “this seems a curious business they
are at, Don Benito?”

“In the gales we met,” answered the Spaniard, “what of our general cargo was not thrown overboard was much damaged
by the brine. Since coming into calm weather, I have had several cases of knives and hatchets daily brought up for
overhauling and cleaning.”

“A prudent idea, Don Benito. You are part owner of ship and cargo, I presume; but none of the slaves, perhaps?”

“I am owner of all you see,” impatiently returned Don Benito, “except the main company of blacks, who belonged to my
late friend, Alexandro Aranda.”

As he mentioned this name, his air was heart-broken; his knees shook; his servant supported him.

Thinking he divined the cause of such unusual emotion, to confirm his surmise, Captain Delano, after a pause, said:
“And may I ask, Don Benito, whether — since awhile ago you spoke of some cabin passengers — the friend, whose loss so
afflicts you, at the outset of the voyage accompanied his blacks?”

“Yes.”

“But died of the fever?”

“Died of the fever. Oh, could I but —”

Again quivering, the Spaniard paused.

“Pardon me,” said Captain Delano, lowly, “but I think that, by a sympathetic experience, I conjecture, Don Benito,
what it is that gives the keener edge to your grief. It was once my hard fortune to lose, at sea, a dear friend, my own
brother, then supercargo. Assured of the welfare of his spirit, its departure I could have borne like a man; but that
honest eye, that honest hand — both of which had so often met mine — and that warm heart; all, all — like scraps to the
dogs — to throw all to the sharks! It was then I vowed never to have for fellow-voyager a man I loved, unless,
unbeknown to him, I had provided every requisite, in case of a fatality, for embalming his mortal part for interment on
shore. Were your friend’s remains now on board this ship, Don Benito, not thus strangely would the mention of his name
affect you.”

“On board this ship?” echoed the Spaniard. Then, with horrified gestures, as directed against some spectre, he
unconsciously fell into the ready arms of his attendant, who, with a silent appeal toward Captain Delano, seemed
beseeching him not again to broach a theme so unspeakably distressing to his master.

This poor fellow now, thought the pained American, is the victim of that sad superstition which associates goblins
with the deserted body of man, as ghosts with an abandoned house. How unlike are we made! What to me, in like case,
would have been a solemn satisfaction, the bare suggestion, even, terrifies the Spaniard into this trance. Poor
Alexandro Aranda! what would you say could you here see your friend — who, on former voyages, when you, for months,
were left behind, has, I dare say, often longed, and longed, for one peep at you — now transported with terror at the
least thought of having you anyway nigh him.

At this moment, with a dreary grave-yard toll, betokening a flaw, the ship’s forecastle bell, smote by one of the
grizzled oakum-pickers, proclaimed ten o’clock, through the leaden calm; when Captain Delano’s attention was caught by
the moving figure of a gigantic black, emerging from the general crowd below, and slowly advancing towards the elevated
poop. An iron collar was about his neck, from which depended a chain, thrice wound round his body; the terminating
links padlocked together at a broad band of iron, his girdle.

“How like a mute Atufal moves,” murmured the servant.

The black mounted the steps of the poop, and, like a brave prisoner, brought up to receive sentence, stood in
unquailing muteness before Don Benito, now recovered from his attack.

At the first glimpse of his approach, Don Benito had started, a resentful shadow swept over his face; and, as with
the sudden memory of bootless rage, his white lips glued together.

This is some mulish mutineer, thought Captain Delano, surveying, not without a mixture of admiration, the colossal
form of the negro.

“See, he waits your question, master,” said the servant.

Thus reminded, Don Benito, nervously averting his glance, as if shunning, by anticipation, some rebellious response,
in a disconcerted voice, thus spoke:—

“Atufal, will you ask my pardon, now?”

The black was silent.

“Again, master,” murmured the servant, with bitter upbraiding eyeing his countryman, “Again, master; he will bend to
master yet.”

“Answer,” said Don Benito, still averting his glance, “say but the one word, pardon, and your chains shall
be off.”

Upon this, the black, slowly raising both arms, let them lifelessly fall, his links clanking, his head bowed; as
much as to say, “no, I am content.”

“He may have some right to it,” bitterly returned Don Benito, “he says he was king in his own land.”

“Yes,” said the servant, entering a word, “those slits in Atufal’s ears once held wedges of gold; but poor Babo
here, in his own land, was only a poor slave; a black man’s slave was Babo, who now is the white’s.”

Somewhat annoyed by these conversational familiarities, Captain Delano turned curiously upon the attendant, then
glanced inquiringly at his master; but, as if long wonted to these little informalities, neither master nor man seemed
to understand him.

“What, pray, was Atufal’s offense, Don Benito?” asked Captain Delano; “if it was not something very serious, take a
fool’s advice, and, in view of his general docility, as well as in some natural respect for his spirit, remit him his
penalty.”

“No, no, master never will do that,” here murmured the servant to himself, “proud Atufal must first ask master’s
pardon. The slave there carries the padlock, but master here carries the key.”

His attention thus directed, Captain Delano now noticed for the first, that, suspended by a slender silken cord,
from Don Benito’s neck, hung a key. At once, from the servant’s muttered syllables, divining the key’s purpose, he
smiled, and said:—“So, Don Benito — padlock and key — significant symbols, truly.”

Biting his lip, Don Benito faltered.

Though the remark of Captain Delano, a man of such native simplicity as to be incapable of satire or irony, had been
dropped in playful allusion to the Spaniard’s singularly evidenced lordship over the black; yet the hypochondriac
seemed some way to have taken it as a malicious reflection upon his confessed inability thus far to break down, at
least, on a verbal summons, the entrenched will of the slave. Deploring this supposed misconception, yet despairing of
correcting it, Captain Delano shifted the subject; but finding his companion more than ever withdrawn, as if still
sourly digesting the lees of the presumed affront above-mentioned, by-and-by Captain Delano likewise became less
talkative, oppressed, against his own will, by what seemed the secret vindictiveness of the morbidly sensitive
Spaniard. But the good sailor, himself of a quite contrary disposition, refrained, on his part, alike from the
appearance as from the feeling of resentment, and if silent, was only so from contagion.

Presently the Spaniard, assisted by his servant somewhat discourteously crossed over from his guest; a procedure
which, sensibly enough, might have been allowed to pass for idle caprice of ill-humor, had not master and man,
lingering round the corner of the elevated skylight, began whispering together in low voices. This was unpleasing. And
more; the moody air of the Spaniard, which at times had not been without a sort of valetudinarian stateliness, now
seemed anything but dignified; while the menial familiarity of the servant lost its original charm of simple-hearted
attachment.

In his embarrassment, the visitor turned his face to the other side of the ship. By so doing, his glance
accidentally fell on a young Spanish sailor, a coil of rope in his hand, just stepped from the deck to the first round
of the mizzen-rigging. Perhaps the man would not have been particularly noticed, were it not that, during his ascent to
one of the yards, he, with a sort of covert intentness, kept his eye fixed on Captain Delano, from whom, presently, it
passed, as if by a natural sequence, to the two whisperers.

His own attention thus redirected to that quarter, Captain Delano gave a slight start. From something in Don
Benito’s manner just then, it seemed as if the visitor had, at least partly, been the subject of the withdrawn
consultation going on — a conjecture as little agreeable to the guest as it was little flattering to the host.

The singular alternations of courtesy and ill-breeding in the Spanish captain were unaccountable, except on one of
two suppositions — innocent lunacy, or wicked imposture.

But the first idea, though it might naturally have occurred to an indifferent observer, and, in some respect, had
not hitherto been wholly a stranger to Captain Delano’s mind, yet, now that, in an incipient way, he began to regard
the stranger’s conduct something in the light of an intentional affront, of course the idea of lunacy was virtually
vacated. But if not a lunatic, what then? Under the circumstances, would a gentleman, nay, any honest boor, act the
part now acted by his host? The man was an impostor. Some low-born adventurer, masquerading as an oceanic grandee; yet
so ignorant of the first requisites of mere gentlemanhood as to be betrayed into the present remarkable indecorum. That
strange ceremoniousness, too, at other times evinced, seemed not uncharacteristic of one playing a part above his real
level. Benito Cereno — Don Benito Cereno — a sounding name. One, too, at that period, not unknown, in the surname, to
super-cargoes and sea captains trading along the Spanish Main, as belonging to one of the most enterprising and
extensive mercantile families in all those provinces; several members of it having titles; a sort of Castilian
Rothschild, with a noble brother, or cousin, in every great trading town of South America. The alleged Don Benito was
in early manhood, about twenty-nine or thirty. To assume a sort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a
house, what more likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But the Spaniard was a pale invalid. Never mind.
For even to the degree of simulating mortal disease, the craft of some tricksters had been known to attain. To think
that, under the aspect of infantile weakness, the most savage energies might be couched — those velvets of the Spaniard
but the silky paw to his fangs.

From no train of thought did these fancies come; not from within, but from without; suddenly, too, and in one
throng, like hoar frost; yet as soon to vanish as the mild sun of Captain Delano’s good-nature regained its
meridian.

Glancing over once more towards his host — whose side-face, revealed above the skylight, was now turned towards him
— he was struck by the profile, whose clearness of cut was refined by the thinness, incident to ill-health, as well as
ennobled about the chin by the beard. Away with suspicion. He was a true off-shoot of a true hidalgo Cereno.

Relieved by these and other better thoughts, the visitor, lightly humming a tune, now began indifferently pacing the
poop, so as not to betray to Don Benito that he had at all mistrusted incivility, much less duplicity; for such
mistrust would yet be proved illusory, and by the event; though, for the present, the circumstance which had provoked
that distrust remained unexplained. But when that little mystery should have been cleared up, Captain Delano thought he
might extremely regret it, did he allow Don Benito to become aware that he had indulged in ungenerous surmises. In
short, to the Spaniard’s black-letter text, it was best, for awhile, to leave open margin.

Presently, his pale face twitching and overcast, the Spaniard, still supported by his attendant, moved over towards
his guest, when, with even more than his usual embarrassment, and a strange sort of intriguing intonation in his husky
whisper, the following conversation began:—

“Señor, may I ask how long you have lain at this isle?”

“Oh, but a day or two, Don Benito.”

“And from what port are you last?”

“Canton.”

“And there, Señor, you exchanged your sealskins for teas and silks, I think you said?”

“Yes, Silks, mostly.”

“And the balance you took in specie, perhaps?”

Captain Delano, fidgeting a little, answered —

“Yes; some silver; not a very great deal, though.”

“Ah — well. May I ask how many men have you, Señor?”

Captain Delano slightly started, but answered —

“About five-and-twenty, all told.”

“And at present, Señor, all on board, I suppose?”

“All on board, Don Benito,” replied the Captain, now with satisfaction.

“And will be to-night, Señor?”

At this last question, following so many pertinacious ones, for the soul of him Captain Delano could not but look
very earnestly at the questioner, who, instead of meeting the glance, with every token of craven discomposure dropped
his eyes to the deck; presenting an unworthy contrast to his servant, who, just then, was kneeling at his feet,
adjusting a loose shoe-buckle; his disengaged face meantime, with humble curiosity, turned openly up into his master’s
downcast one.

The Spaniard, still with a guilty shuffle, repeated his question:

“And — and will be to-night, Señor?”

“Yes, for aught I know,” returned Captain Delano —“but nay,” rallying himself into fearless truth, “some of them
talked of going off on another fishing party about midnight.”

“Your ships generally go — go more or less armed, I believe, Señor?”

“Oh, a six-pounder or two, in case of emergency,” was the intrepidly indifferent reply, “with a small stock of
muskets, sealing-spears, and cutlasses, you know.”

As he thus responded, Captain Delano again glanced at Don Benito, but the latter’s eyes were averted; while abruptly
and awkwardly shifting the subject, he made some peevish allusion to the calm, and then, without apology, once more,
with his attendant, withdrew to the opposite bulwarks, where the whispering was resumed.

At this moment, and ere Captain Delano could cast a cool thought upon what had just passed, the young Spanish
sailor, before mentioned, was seen descending from the rigging. In act of stooping over to spring inboard to the deck,
his voluminous, unconfined frock, or shirt, of coarse woolen, much spotted with tar, opened out far down the chest,
revealing a soiled under garment of what seemed the finest linen, edged, about the neck, with a narrow blue ribbon,
sadly faded and worn. At this moment the young sailor’s eye was again fixed on the whisperers, and Captain Delano
thought he observed a lurking significance in it, as if silent signs, of some Freemason sort, had that instant been
interchanged.

This once more impelled his own glance in the direction of Don Benito, and, as before, he could not but infer that
himself formed the subject of the conference. He paused. The sound of the hatchet-polishing fell on his ears. He cast
another swift side-look at the two. They had the air of conspirators. In connection with the late questionings, and the
incident of the young sailor, these things now begat such return of involuntary suspicion, that the singular
guilelessness of the American could not endure it. Plucking up a gay and humorous expression, he crossed over to the
two rapidly, saying:—“Ha, Don Benito, your black here seems high in your trust; a sort of privy-counselor, in
fact.”

Upon this, the servant looked up with a good-natured grin, but the master started as from a venomous bite. It was a
moment or two before the Spaniard sufficiently recovered himself to reply; which he did, at last, with cold
constraint:—“Yes, Señor, I have trust in Babo.”

Here Babo, changing his previous grin of mere animal humor into an intelligent smile, not ungratefully eyed his
master.

Finding that the Spaniard now stood silent and reserved, as if involuntarily, or purposely giving hint that his
guest’s proximity was inconvenient just then, Captain Delano, unwilling to appear uncivil even to incivility itself,
made some trivial remark and moved off; again and again turning over in his mind the mysterious demeanor of Don Benito
Cereno.

He had descended from the poop, and, wrapped in thought, was passing near a dark hatchway, leading down into the
steerage, when, perceiving motion there, he looked to see what moved. The same instant there was a sparkle in the
shadowy hatchway, and he saw one of the Spanish sailors, prowling there hurriedly placing his hand in the bosom of his
frock, as if hiding something. Before the man could have been certain who it was that was passing, he slunk below out
of sight. But enough was seen of him to make it sure that he was the same young sailor before noticed in the
rigging.

What was that which so sparkled? thought Captain Delano. It was no lamp — no match — no live coal. Could it have
been a jewel? But how come sailors with jewels? — or with silk-trimmed under-shirts either? Has he been robbing the
trunks of the dead cabin-passengers? But if so, he would hardly wear one of the stolen articles on board ship here. Ah,
ah — if, now, that was, indeed, a secret sign I saw passing between this suspicious fellow and his captain awhile
since; if I could only be certain that, in my uneasiness, my senses did not deceive me, then —

Here, passing from one suspicious thing to another, his mind revolved the strange questions put to him concerning
his ship.

By a curious coincidence, as each point was recalled, the black wizards of Ashantee would strike up with their
hatchets, as in ominous comment on the white stranger’s thoughts. Pressed by such enigmas: and portents, it would have
been almost against nature, had not, even into the least distrustful heart, some ugly misgivings obtruded.

Observing the ship, now helplessly fallen into a current, with enchanted sails, drifting with increased rapidity
seaward; and noting that, from a lately intercepted projection of the land, the sealer was hidden, the stout mariner
began to quake at thoughts which he barely durst confess to himself. Above all, he began to feel a ghostly dread of Don
Benito. And yet, when he roused himself, dilated his chest, felt himself strong on his legs, and coolly considered it —
what did all these phantoms amount to?

Had the Spaniard any sinister scheme, it must have reference not so much to him (Captain Delano) as to his ship (the
Bachelor’s Delight). Hence the present drifting away of the one ship from the other, instead of favoring any such
possible scheme, was, for the time, at least, opposed to it. Clearly any suspicion, combining such contradictions, must
need be delusive. Beside, was it not absurd to think of a vessel in distress — a vessel by sickness almost dismanned of
her crew — a vessel whose inmates were parched for water — was it not a thousand times absurd that such a craft should,
at present, be of a piratical character; or her commander, either for himself or those under him, cherish any desire
but for speedy relief and refreshment? But then, might not general distress, and thirst in particular, be affected? And
might not that same undiminished Spanish crew, alleged to have perished off to a remnant, be at that very moment
lurking in the hold? On heart-broken pretense of entreating a cup of cold water, fiends in human form had got into
lonely dwellings, nor retired until a dark deed had been done. And among the Malay pirates, it was no unusual thing to
lure ships after them into their treacherous harbors, or entice boarders from a declared enemy at sea, by the spectacle
of thinly manned or vacant decks, beneath which prowled a hundred spears with yellow arms ready to upthrust them
through the mats. Not that Captain Delano had entirely credited such things. He had heard of them — and now, as
stories, they recurred. The present destination of the ship was the anchorage. There she would be near his own vessel.
Upon gaining that vicinity, might not the San Dominick, like a slumbering volcano, suddenly let loose energies now
hid?

He recalled the Spaniard’s manner while telling his story. There was a gloomy hesitancy and subterfuge about it. It
was just the manner of one making up his tale for evil purposes, as he goes. But if that story was not true, what was
the truth? That the ship had unlawfully come into the Spaniard’s possession? But in many of its details, especially in
reference to the more calamitous parts, such as the fatalities among the seamen, the consequent prolonged beating
about, the past sufferings from obstinate calms, and still continued suffering from thirst; in all these points, as
well as others, Don Benito’s story had corroborated not only the wailing ejaculations of the indiscriminate multitude,
white and black, but likewise — what seemed impossible to be counterfeit — by the very expression and play of every
human feature, which Captain Delano saw. If Don Benito’s story was, throughout, an invention, then every soul on board,
down to the youngest negress, was his carefully drilled recruit in the plot: an incredible inference. And yet, if there
was ground for mistrusting his veracity, that inference was a legitimate one.

But those questions of the Spaniard. There, indeed, one might pause. Did they not seem put with much the same object
with which the burglar or assassin, by day-time, reconnoitres the walls of a house? But, with ill purposes, to solicit
such information openly of the chief person endangered, and so, in effect, setting him on his guard; how unlikely a
procedure was that? Absurd, then, to suppose that those questions had been prompted by evil designs. Thus, the same
conduct, which, in this instance, had raised the alarm, served to dispel it. In short, scarce any suspicion or
uneasiness, however apparently reasonable at the time, which was not now, with equal apparent reason, dismissed.

At last he began to laugh at his former forebodings; and laugh at the strange ship for, in its aspect, someway
siding with them, as it were; and laugh, too, at the odd-looking blacks, particularly those old scissors-grinders, the
Ashantees; and those bed-ridden old knitting women, the oakum-pickers; and almost at the dark Spaniard himself, the
central hobgoblin of all.

For the rest, whatever in a serious way seemed enigmatical, was now good-naturedly explained away by the thought
that, for the most part, the poor invalid scarcely knew what he was about; either sulking in black vapors, or putting
idle questions without sense or object. Evidently for the present, the man was not fit to be intrusted with the ship.
On some benevolent plea withdrawing the command from him, Captain Delano would yet have to send her to Conception, in
charge of his second mate, a worthy person and good navigator — a plan not more convenient for the San Dominick than
for Don Benito; for, relieved from all anxiety, keeping wholly to his cabin, the sick man, under the good nursing of
his servant, would, probably, by the end of the passage, be in a measure restored to health, and with that he should
also be restored to authority.

Such were the American’s thoughts. They were tranquilizing. There was a difference between the idea of Don Benito’s
darkly preordaining Captain Delano’s fate, and Captain Delano’s lightly arranging Don Benito’s. Nevertheless, it was
not without something of relief that the good seaman presently perceived his whale-boat in the distance. Its absence
had been prolonged by unexpected detention at the sealer’s side, as well as its returning trip lengthened by the
continual recession of the goal.

The advancing speck was observed by the blacks. Their shouts attracted the attention of Don Benito, who, with a
return of courtesy, approaching Captain Delano, expressed satisfaction at the coming of some supplies, slight and
temporary as they must necessarily prove.

Captain Delano responded; but while doing so, his attention was drawn to something passing on the deck below: among
the crowd climbing the landward bulwarks, anxiously watching the coming boat, two blacks, to all appearances
accidentally incommoded by one of the sailors, violently pushed him aside, which the sailor someway resenting, they
dashed him to the deck, despite the earnest cries of the oakum-pickers.

“Don Benito,” said Captain Delano quickly, “do you see what is going on there? Look!”

But, seized by his cough, the Spaniard staggered, with both hands to his face, on the point of falling. Captain
Delano would have supported him, but the servant was more alert, who, with one hand sustaining his master, with the
other applied the cordial. Don Benito restored, the black withdrew his support, slipping aside a little, but dutifully
remaining within call of a whisper. Such discretion was here evinced as quite wiped away, in the visitor’s eyes, any
blemish of impropriety which might have attached to the attendant, from the indecorous conferences before mentioned;
showing, too, that if the servant were to blame, it might be more the master’s fault than his own, since, when left to
himself, he could conduct thus well.

His glance called away from the spectacle of disorder to the more pleasing one before him, Captain Delano could not
avoid again congratulating his host upon possessing such a servant, who, though perhaps a little too forward now and
then, must upon the whole be invaluable to one in the invalid’s situation.

“Tell me, Don Benito,” he added, with a smile —“I should like to have your man here, myself — what will you take for
him? Would fifty doubloons be any object?”

“Master wouldn’t part with Babo for a thousand doubloons,” murmured the black, overhearing the offer, and taking it
in earnest, and, with the strange vanity of a faithful slave, appreciated by his master, scorning to hear so paltry a
valuation put upon him by a stranger. But Don Benito, apparently hardly yet completely restored, and again interrupted
by his cough, made but some broken reply.

Soon his physical distress became so great, affecting his mind, too, apparently, that, as if to screen the sad
spectacle, the servant gently conducted his master below.

Left to himself, the American, to while away the time till his boat should arrive, would have pleasantly accosted
some one of the few Spanish seamen he saw; but recalling something that Don Benito had said touching their ill conduct,
he refrained; as a shipmaster indisposed to countenance cowardice or unfaithfulness in seamen.

While, with these thoughts, standing with eye directed forward towards that handful of sailors, suddenly he thought
that one or two of them returned the glance and with a sort of meaning. He rubbed his eyes, and looked again; but again
seemed to see the same thing. Under a new form, but more obscure than any previous one, the old suspicions recurred,
but, in the absence of Don Benito, with less of panic than before. Despite the bad account given of the sailors,
Captain Delano resolved forthwith to accost one of them. Descending the poop, he made his way through the blacks, his
movement drawing a queer cry from the oakum-pickers, prompted by whom, the negroes, twitching each other aside, divided
before him; but, as if curious to see what was the object of this deliberate visit to their Ghetto, closing in behind,
in tolerable order, followed the white stranger up. His progress thus proclaimed as by mounted kings-at-arms, and
escorted as by a Caffre guard of honor, Captain Delano, assuming a good-humored, off-handed air, continued to advance;
now and then saying a blithe word to the negroes, and his eye curiously surveying the white faces, here and there
sparsely mixed in with the blacks, like stray white pawns venturously involved in the ranks of the chess-men
opposed.

While thinking which of them to select for his purpose, he chanced to observe a sailor seated on the deck engaged in
tarring the strap of a large block, a circle of blacks squatted round him inquisitively eying the process.

The mean employment of the man was in contrast with something superior in his figure. His hand, black with
continually thrusting it into the tar-pot held for him by a negro, seemed not naturally allied to his face, a face
which would have been a very fine one but for its haggardness. Whether this haggardness had aught to do with
criminality, could not be determined; since, as intense heat and cold, though unlike, produce like sensations, so
innocence and guilt, when, through casual association with mental pain, stamping any visible impress, use one seal — a
hacked one.

Not again that this reflection occurred to Captain Delano at the time, charitable man as he was. Rather another
idea. Because observing so singular a haggardness combined with a dark eye, averted as in trouble and shame, and then
again recalling Don Benito’s confessed ill opinion of his crew, insensibly he was operated upon by certain general
notions which, while disconnecting pain and abashment from virtue, invariably link them with vice.

If, indeed, there be any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain Delano, be sure that man there has fouled
his hand in it, even as now he fouls it in the pitch. I don’t like to accost him. I will speak to this other, this old
Jack here on the windlass.

He advanced to an old Barcelona tar, in ragged red breeches and dirty night-cap, cheeks trenched and bronzed,
whiskers dense as thorn hedges. Seated between two sleepy-looking Africans, this mariner, like his younger shipmate,
was employed upon some rigging — splicing a cable — the sleepy-looking blacks performing the inferior function of
holding the outer parts of the ropes for him.

Upon Captain Delano’s approach, the man at once hung his head below its previous level; the one necessary for
business. It appeared as if he desired to be thought absorbed, with more than common fidelity, in his task. Being
addressed, he glanced up, but with what seemed a furtive, diffident air, which sat strangely enough on his
weather-beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear, instead of growling and biting, should simper and cast sheep’s eyes.
He was asked several questions concerning the voyage — questions purposely referring to several particulars in Don
Benito’s narrative, not previously corroborated by those impulsive cries greeting the visitor on first coming on board.
The questions were briefly answered, confirming all that remained to be confirmed of the story. The negroes about the
windlass joined in with the old sailor; but, as they became talkative, he by degrees became mute, and at length quite
glum, seemed morosely unwilling to answer more questions, and yet, all the while, this ursine air was somehow mixed
with his sheepish one.

Despairing of getting into unembarrassed talk with such a centaur, Captain Delano, after glancing round for a more
promising countenance, but seeing none, spoke pleasantly to the blacks to make way for him; and so, amid various grins
and grimaces, returned to the poop, feeling a little strange at first, he could hardly tell why, but upon the whole
with regained confidence in Benito Cereno.

How plainly, thought he, did that old whiskerando yonder betray a consciousness of ill desert. No doubt, when he saw
me coming, he dreaded lest I, apprised by his Captain of the crew’s general misbehavior, came with sharp words for him,
and so down with his head. And yet — and yet, now that I think of it, that very old fellow, if I err not, was one of
those who seemed so earnestly eying me here awhile since. Ah, these currents spin one’s head round almost as much as
they do the ship. Ha, there now’s a pleasant sort of sunny sight; quite sociable, too.

His attention had been drawn to a slumbering negress, partly disclosed through the lacework of some rigging, lying,
with youthful limbs carelessly disposed, under the lee of the bulwarks, like a doe in the shade of a woodland rock.
Sprawling at her lapped breasts, was her wide-awake fawn, stark naked, its black little body half lifted from the deck,
crosswise with its dam’s; its hands, like two paws, clambering upon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually rooting to
get at the mark; and meantime giving a vexatious half-grunt, blending with the composed snore of the negress.

The uncommon vigor of the child at length roused the mother. She started up, at a distance facing Captain Delano.
But as if not, at all concerned at the attitude in which she had been caught, delightedly she caught the child up, with
maternal transports, covering it with kisses.

This incident prompted him to remark the other negresses more particularly than before. He was gratified with their
manners: like most uncivilized women, they seemed at once tender of heart and tough of constitution; equally ready to
die for their infants or fight for them. Unsophisticated as leopardesses; loving as doves. Ah! thought Captain Delano,
these, perhaps, are some of the very women whom Ledyard saw in Africa, and gave such a noble account of.

These natural sights somehow insensibly deepened his confidence and ease. At last he looked to see how his boat was
getting on; but it was still pretty remote. He turned to see if Don Benito had returned; but he had not.

To change the scene, as well as to please himself with a leisurely observation of the coming boat, stepping over
into the mizzen-chains, he clambered his way into the starboard quarter-gallery — one of those abandoned
Venetian-looking water-balconies previously mentioned — retreats cut off from the deck. As his foot pressed the
half-damp, half-dry sea-mosses matting the place, and a chance phantom cats-paw — an islet of breeze, unheralded
unfollowed — as this ghostly cats-paw came fanning his cheek; as his glance fell upon the row of small, round
dead-lights — all closed like coppered eyes of the coffined — and the state-cabin door, once connecting with the
gallery, even as the dead-lights had once looked out upon it, but now calked fast like a sarcophagus lid; and to a
purple-black tarred-over, panel, threshold, and post; and he bethought him of the time, when that state-cabin and this
state-balcony had heard the voices of the Spanish king’s officers, and the forms of the Lima viceroy’s daughters had
perhaps leaned where he stood — as these and other images flitted through his mind, as the cats-paw through the calm,
gradually he felt rising a dreamy inquietude, like that of one who alone on the prairie feels unrest from the repose of
the noon.

He leaned against the carved balustrade, again looking off toward his boat; but found his eye falling upon the
ribbon grass, trailing along the ship’s water-line, straight as a border of green box; and parterres of sea-weed, broad
ovals and crescents, floating nigh and far, with what seemed long formal alleys between, crossing the terraces of
swells, and sweeping round as if leading to the grottoes below. And overhanging all was the balustrade by his arm,
which, partly stained with pitch and partly embossed with moss, seemed the charred ruin of some summer-house in a grand
garden long running to waste.

Trying to break one charm, he was but becharmed anew. Though upon the wide sea, he seemed in some far inland
country; prisoner in some deserted château, left to stare at empty grounds, and peer out at vague roads, where never
wagon or wayfarer passed.

But these enchantments were a little disenchanted as his eye fell on the corroded main-chains. Of an ancient style,
massy and rusty in link, shackle and bolt, they seemed even more fit for the ship’s present business than the one for
which she had been built.

Presently he thought something moved nigh the chains. He rubbed his eyes, and looked hard. Groves of rigging were
about the chains; and there, peering from behind a great stay, like an Indian from behind a hemlock, a Spanish sailor,
a marlingspike in his hand, was seen, who made what seemed an imperfect gesture towards the balcony, but immediately as
if alarmed by some advancing step along the deck within, vanished into the recesses of the hempen forest, like a
poacher.

What meant this? Something the man had sought to communicate, unbeknown to any one, even to his captain. Did the
secret involve aught unfavorable to his captain? Were those previous misgivings of Captain Delano’s about to be
verified? Or, in his haunted mood at the moment, had some random, unintentional motion of the man, while busy with the
stay, as if repairing it, been mistaken for a significant beckoning?

Not unbewildered, again he gazed off for his boat. But it was temporarily hidden by a rocky spur of the isle. As
with some eagerness he bent forward, watching for the first shooting view of its beak, the balustrade gave way before
him like charcoal. Had he not clutched an outreaching rope he would have fallen into the sea. The crash, though feeble,
and the fall, though hollow, of the rotten fragments, must have been overheard. He glanced up. With sober curiosity
peering down upon him was one of the old oakum-pickers, slipped from his perch to an outside boom; while below the old
negro, and, invisible to him, reconnoitering from a port-hole like a fox from the mouth of its den, crouched the
Spanish sailor again. From something suddenly suggested by the man’s air, the mad idea now darted into Captain Delano’s
mind, that Don Benito’s plea of indisposition, in withdrawing below, was but a pretense: that he was engaged there
maturing his plot, of which the sailor, by some means gaining an inkling, had a mind to warn the stranger against;
incited, it may be, by gratitude for a kind word on first boarding the ship. Was it from foreseeing some possible
interference like this, that Don Benito had, beforehand, given such a bad character of his sailors, while praising the
negroes; though, indeed, the former seemed as docile as the latter the contrary? The whites, too, by nature, were the
shrewder race. A man with some evil design, would he not be likely to speak well of that stupidity which was blind to
his depravity, and malign that intelligence from which it might not be hidden? Not unlikely, perhaps. But if the whites
had dark secrets concerning Don Benito, could then Don Benito be any way in complicity with the blacks? But they were
too stupid. Besides, who ever heard of a white so far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species almost, by
leaguing in against it with negroes? These difficulties recalled former ones. Lost in their mazes, Captain Delano, who
had now regained the deck, was uneasily advancing along it, when he observed a new face; an aged sailor seated
cross-legged near the main hatchway. His skin was shrunk up with wrinkles like a pelican’s empty pouch; his hair
frosted; his countenance grave and composed. His hands were full of ropes, which he was working into a large knot. Some
blacks were about him obligingly dipping the strands for him, here and there, as the exigencies of the operation
demanded.

Captain Delano crossed over to him, and stood in silence surveying the knot; his mind, by a not uncongenial
transition, passing from its own entanglements to those of the hemp. For intricacy, such a knot he had never seen in an
American ship, nor indeed any other. The old man looked like an Egyptian priest, making Gordian knots for the temple of
Ammon. The knot seemed a combination of double-bowline-knot, treble-crown-knot, back-handed-well-knot,
knot-inand-out-knot, and jamming-knot.

At last, puzzled to comprehend the meaning of such a knot, Captain Delano addressed the knotter:—

“What are you knotting there, my man?”

“The knot,” was the brief reply, without looking up.

“So it seems; but what is it for?”

“For some one else to undo,” muttered back the old man, plying his fingers harder than ever, the knot being now
nearly completed.

While Captain Delano stood watching him, suddenly the old man threw the knot towards him, saying in broken English —
the first heard in the ship — something to this effect: “Undo it, cut it, quick.” It was said lowly, but with such
condensation of rapidity, that the long, slow words in Spanish, which had preceded and followed, almost operated as
covers to the brief English between.

For a moment, knot in hand, and knot in head, Captain Delano stood mute; while, without further heeding him, the old
man was now intent upon other ropes. Presently there was a slight stir behind Captain Delano. Turning, he saw the
chained negro, Atufal, standing quietly there. The next moment the old sailor rose, muttering, and, followed by his
subordinate negroes, removed to the forward part of the ship, where in the crowd he disappeared.

An elderly negro, in a clout like an infant’s, and with a pepper and salt head, and a kind of attorney air, now
approached Captain Delano. In tolerable Spanish, and with a good-natured, knowing wink, he informed him that the old
knotter was simple-witted, but harmless; often playing his odd tricks. The negro concluded by begging the knot, for of
course the stranger would not care to be troubled with it. Unconsciously, it was handed to him. With a sort of congé,
the negro received it, and, turning his back, ferreted into it like a detective custom-house officer after smuggled
laces. Soon, with some African word, equivalent to pshaw, he tossed the knot overboard.

All this is very queer now, thought Captain Delano, with a qualmish sort of emotion; but, as one feeling incipient
sea-sickness, he strove, by ignoring the symptoms, to get rid of the malady. Once more he looked off for his boat. To
his delight, it was now again in view, leaving the rocky spur astern.

The sensation here experienced, after at first relieving his uneasiness, with unforeseen efficacy soon began to
remove it. The less distant sight of that well-known boat — showing it, not as before, half blended with the haze, but
with outline defined, so that its individuality, like a man’s, was manifest; that boat, Rover by name, which, though
now in strange seas, had often pressed the beach of Captain Delano’s home, and, brought to its threshold for repairs,
had familiarly lain there, as a Newfoundland dog; the sight of that household, boat evoked a thousand trustful
associations, which, contrasted with previous suspicions, filled him not only with lightsome confidence, but somehow
with half humorous self-reproaches at his former lack of it.

“What, I, Amasa Delano — Jack of the Beach, as they called me when a lad — I, Amasa; the same that, duck-satchel in
hand, used to paddle along the water-side to the school-house made from the old hulk — I, little Jack of the Beach,
that used to go berrying with cousin Nat and the rest; I to be murdered here at the ends of the earth, on board a
haunted pirate-ship by a horrible Spaniard? Too nonsensical to think of! Who would murder Amasa Delano? His conscience
is clean. There is some one above. Fie, fie, Jack of the Beach! you are a child indeed; a child of the second
childhood, old boy; you are beginning to dote and drule, I’m afraid.”

Light of heart and foot, he stepped aft, and there was met by Don Benito’s servant, who, with a pleasing expression,
responsive to his own present feelings, informed him that his master had recovered from the effects of his coughing
fit, and had just ordered him to go present his compliments to his good guest, Don Amasa, and say that he (Don Benito)
would soon have the happiness to rejoin him.

There now, do you mark that? again thought Captain Delano, walking the poop. What a donkey I was. This kind
gentleman who here sends me his kind compliments, he, but ten minutes ago, dark-lantern in had, was dodging round some
old grind-stone in the hold, sharpening a hatchet for me, I thought. Well, well; these long calms have a morbid effect
on the mind, I’ve often heard, though I never believed it before. Ha! glancing towards the boat; there’s Rover; good
dog; a white bone in her mouth. A pretty big bone though, seems to me. — What? Yes, she has fallen afoul of the
bubbling tide-rip there. It sets her the other way, too, for the time. Patience.

It was now about noon, though, from the grayness of everything, it seemed to be getting towards dusk.

The calm was confirmed. In the far distance, away from the influence of land, the leaden ocean seemed laid out and
leaded up, it’s course finished, soul gone, defunct. But the current from landward, where the ship was, increased;
silently sweeping her further and further towards the tranced waters beyond.

Still, from his knowledge of those latitudes, cherishing hopes of a breeze, and a fair and fresh one, at any moment,
Captain Delano, despite present prospects, buoyantly counted upon bringing the San Dominick safely to anchor ere night.
The distance swept over was nothing; since, with a good wind, ten minutes’ sailing would retrace more than sixty
minutes, drifting. Meantime, one moment turning to mark “Rover” fighting the tide-rip, and the next to see Don Benito
approaching, he continued walking the poop.

Gradually he felt a vexation arising from the delay of his boat; this soon merged into uneasiness; and at last — his
eye falling continually, as from a stage-box into the pit, upon the strange crowd before and below him, and, by-and-by,
recognizing there the face — now composed to indifference — of the Spanish sailor who had seemed to beckon from the
main-chains — something of his old trepidations returned.

Ah, thought he — gravely enough — this is like the ague: because it went off, it follows not that it won’t come
back.

Though ashamed of the relapse, he could not altogether subdue it; and so, exerting his good-nature to the utmost,
insensibly he came to a compromise.

Yes, this is a strange craft; a strange history, too, and strange folks on board. But — nothing more.

By way of keeping his mind out of mischief till the boat should arrive, he tried to occupy it with turning over and
over, in a purely speculative sort of way, some lesser peculiarities of the captain and crew. Among others, four
curious points recurred:

First, the affair of the Spanish lad assailed with a knife by the slave boy; an act winked at by Don Benito. Second,
the tyranny in Don Benito’s treatment of Atufal, the black; as if a child should lead a bull of the Nile by the ring in
his nose. Third, the trampling of the sailor by the two negroes; a piece of insolence passed over without so much as a
reprimand. Fourth, the cringing submission to their master, of all the ship’s underlings, mostly blacks; as if by the
least inadvertence they feared to draw down his despotic displeasure.

Coupling these points, they seemed somewhat contradictory. But what then, thought Captain Delano, glancing towards
his now nearing boat — what then? Why, Don Benito is a very capricious commander. But he is not the first of the sort I
have seen; though it’s true he rather exceeds any other. But as a nation — continued he in his reveries — these
Spaniards are all an odd set; the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy–Fawkish twang to it. And yet, I
dare say, Spaniards in the main are as good folks as any in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Ah good! last “Rover” has come.

As, with its welcome freight, the boat touched the side, the oakum-pickers, with venerable gestures, sought to
restrain the blacks, who, at the sight of three gurried water-casks in its bottom, and a pile of wilted pumpkins in its
bow, hung over the bulwarks in disorderly raptured.

Don Benito, with his servant, now appeared; his coming, perhaps, hastened by hearing the noise. Of him Captain
Delano sought permission to serve out the water, so that all might share alike, and none injure themselves by unfair
excess. But sensible, and, on Don Benito’s account, kind as this offer was, it was received with what seemed
impatience; as if aware that he lacked energy as a commander, Don Benito, with the true jealousy of weakness, resented
as an affront any interference. So, at least, Captain Delano inferred.

In another moment the casks were being hoisted in, when some of the eager negroes accidentally jostled Captain
Delano, where he stood by the gangway; so, that, unmindful of Don Benito, yielding to the impulse of the moment, with
good-natured authority he bade the blacks stand back; to enforce his words making use of a half-mirthful, half-menacing
gesture. Instantly the blacks paused, just where they were, each negro and negress suspended in his or her posture,
exactly as the word had found them — for a few seconds continuing so — while, as between the responsive posts of a
telegraph, an unknown syllable ran from man to man among the perched oakum-pickers. While the visitor’s attention was
fixed by this scene, suddenly the hatchet-polishers half rose, and a rapid cry came from Don Benito.

Thinking that at the signal of the Spaniard he was about to be massacred, Captain Delano would have sprung for his
boat, but paused, as the oakum-pickers, dropping down into the crowd with earnest exclamations, forced every white and
every negro back, at the same moment, with gestures friendly and familiar, almost jocose, bidding him, in substance,
not be a fool. Simultaneously the hatchet-polishers resumed their seats, quietly as so many tailors, and at once, as if
nothing had happened, the work of hoisting in the casks was resumed, whites and blacks singing at the tackle.

Captain Delano glanced towards Don Benito. As he saw his meagre form in the act of recovering itself from reclining
in the servant’s arms, into which the agitated invalid had fallen, he could not but marvel at the panic by which
himself had been surprised, on the darting supposition that such a commander, who, upon a legitimate occasion, so
trivial, too, as it now appeared, could lose all self-command, was, with energetic iniquity, going to bring about his
murder.

The casks being on deck, Captain Delano was handed a number of jars and cups by one of the steward’s aids, who, in
the name of his captain, entreated him to do as he had proposed — dole out the water. He complied, with republican
impartiality as to this republican element, which always seeks one level, serving the oldest white no better than the
youngest black; excepting, indeed, poor Don Benito, whose condition, if not rank, demanded an extra allowance. To him,
in the first place, Captain Delano presented a fair pitcher of the fluid; but, thirsting as he was for it, the Spaniard
quaffed not a drop until after several grave bows and salutes. A reciprocation of courtesies which the sight-loving
Africans hailed with clapping of hands.

Two of the less wilted pumpkins being reserved for the cabin table, the residue were minced up on the spot for the
general regalement. But the soft bread, sugar, and bottled cider, Captain Delano would have given the whites alone, and
in chief Don Benito; but the latter objected; which disinterestedness not a little pleased the American; and so
mouthfuls all around were given alike to whites and blacks; excepting one bottle of cider, which Babo insisted upon
setting aside for his master.

Here it may be observed that as, on the first visit of the boat, the American had not permitted his men to board the
ship, neither did he now; being unwilling to add to the confusion of the decks.

Not uninfluenced by the peculiar good-humor at present prevailing, and for the time oblivious of any but benevolent
thoughts, Captain Delano, who, from recent indications, counted upon a breeze within an hour or two at furthest,
dispatched the boat back to the sealer, with orders for all the hands that could be spared immediately to set about
rafting casks to the watering-place and filling them. Likewise he bade word be carried to his chief officer, that if,
against present expectation, the ship was not brought to anchor by sunset, he need be under no concern; for as there
was to be a full moon that night, he (Captain Delano) would remain on board ready to play the pilot, come the wind soon
or late.

As the two Captains stood together, observing the departing boat — the servant, as it happened, having just spied a
spot on his master’s velvet sleeve, and silently engaged rubbing it out — the American expressed his regrets that the
San Dominick had no boats; none, at least, but the unseaworthy old hulk of the long-boat, which, warped as a camel’s
skeleton in the desert, and almost as bleached, lay pot-wise inverted amidships, one side a little tipped, furnishing a
subterraneous sort of den for family groups of the blacks, mostly women and small children; who, squatting on old mats
below, or perched above in the dark dome, on the elevated seats, were descried, some distance within, like a social
circle of bats, sheltering in some friendly cave; at intervals, ebon flights of naked boys and girls, three or four
years old, darting in and out of the den’s mouth.

“Had you three or four boats now, Don Benito,” said Captain Delano, “I think that, by tugging at the oars, your
negroes here might help along matters some. Did you sail from port without boats, Don Benito?”

“They were stove in the gales, Señor.”

“That was bad. Many men, too, you lost then. Boats and men. Those must have been hard gales, Don Benito.”

“Past all speech,” cringed the Spaniard.

“Tell me, Don Benito,” continued his companion with increased interest, “tell me, were these gales immediately off
the pitch of Cape Horn?”

“Cape Horn? — who spoke of Cape Horn?”

“Yourself did, when giving me an account of your voyage,” answered Captain Delano, with almost equal astonishment at
this eating of his own words, even as he ever seemed eating his own heart, on the part of the Spaniard. “You yourself,
Don Benito, spoke of Cape Horn,” he emphatically repeated.

The Spaniard turned, in a sort of stooping posture, pausing an instant, as one about to make a plunging exchange of
elements, as from air to water.

At this moment a messenger-boy, a white, hurried by, in the regular performance of his function carrying the last
expired half hour forward to the forecastle, from the cabin time-piece, to have it struck at the ship’s large bell.

“Master,” said the servant, discontinuing his work on the coat sleeve, and addressing the rapt Spaniard with a sort
of timid apprehensiveness, as one charged with a duty, the discharge of which, it was foreseen, would prove irksome to
the very person who had imposed it, and for whose benefit it was intended, “master told me never mind where he was, or
how engaged, always to remind him to a minute, when shaving-time comes. Miguel has gone to strike the half-hour
afternoon. It is now, master. Will master go into the cuddy?”

“Ah — yes,” answered the Spaniard, starting, as from dreams into realities; then turning upon Captain Delano, he
said that ere long he would resume the conversation.

“Then if master means to talk more to Don Amasa,” said the servant, “why not let Don Amasa sit by master in the
cuddy, and master can talk, and Don Amasa can listen, while Babo here lathers and strops.”

“Yes,” said Captain Delano, not unpleased with this sociable plan, “yes, Don Benito, unless you had rather not, I
will go with you.”

“Be it so, Señor.”

As the three passed aft, the American could not but think it another strange instance of his host’s capriciousness,
this being shaved with such uncommon punctuality in the middle of the day. But he deemed it more than likely that the
servant’s anxious fidelity had something to do with the matter; inasmuch as the timely interruption served to rally his
master from the mood which had evidently been coming upon him.

The place called the cuddy was a light deck-cabin formed by the poop, a sort of attic to the large cabin below. Part
of it had formerly been the quarters of the officers; but since their death all the partitioning had been thrown down,
and the whole interior converted into one spacious and airy marine hall; for absence of fine furniture and picturesque
disarray of odd appurtenances, somewhat answering to the wide, cluttered hall of some eccentric bachelor-squire in the
country, who hangs his shooting-jacket and tobacco-pouch on deer antlers, and keeps his fishing-rod, tongs, and
walking-stick in the same corner.

The similitude was heightened, if not originally suggested, by glimpses of the surrounding sea; since, in one
aspect, the country and the ocean seem cousins-german.

The floor of the cuddy was matted. Overhead, four or five old muskets were stuck into horizontal holes along the
beams. On one side was a claw-footed old table lashed to the deck; a thumbed missal on it, and over it a small, meagre
crucifix attached to the bulk-head. Under the table lay a dented cutlass or two, with a hacked harpoon, among some;
melancholy old rigging, like a heap of poor friars’ girdles. There were also two long, sharp-ribbed settees of Malacca
cane, black with age, and uncomfortable to look at as inquisitors’ racks, with a large, misshapen arm-chair, which,
furnished with a rude barber’s crotch at the back, working with a screw, seemed some grotesque engine of torment. A
flag locker was in one corner, open, exposing various colored bunting, some rolled up, others half unrolled, still
others tumbled. Opposite was a cumbrous washstand, of black mahogany, all of one block, with a pedestal, like a font,
and over it a railed shelf, containing combs, brushes, and other implements of the toilet. A torn hammock of stained
grass swung near; the sheets tossed, and the pillow wrinkled up like a brow, as if who ever slept here slept but illy,
with alternate visitations of sad thoughts and bad dreams.

The further extremity of the cuddy, overhanging the ship’s stern, was pierced with three openings, windows or
port-holes, according as men or cannon might peer, socially or unsocially, out of them. At present neither men nor
cannon were seen, though huge ring-bolts and other rusty iron fixtures of the wood-work hinted of
twenty-four-pounders.

“Yes, Señor; events have not been favorable to much order in my arrangements.”

Here the servant, napkin on arm, made a motion as if waiting his master’s good pleasure. Don Benito signified his
readiness, when, seating him in the Malacca arm-chair, and for the guest’s convenience drawing opposite one of the
settees, the servant commenced operations by throwing back his master’s collar and loosening his cravat.

There is something in the negro which, in a peculiar way, fits him for avocations about one’s person. Most negroes
are natural valets and hair-dressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to the castinets, and flourishing
them apparently with almost equal satisfaction. There is, too, a smooth tact about them in this employment, with a
marvelous, noiseless, gliding briskness, not ungraceful in its way, singularly pleasing to behold, and still more so to
be the manipulated subject of. And above all is the great gift of good-humor. Not the mere grin or laugh is here meant.
Those were unsuitable. But a certain easy cheerfulness, harmonious in every glance and gesture; as though God had set
the whole negro to some pleasant tune.

When to this is added the docility arising from the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind and that susceptibility
of blind attachment sometimes inhering in indisputable inferiors, one readily perceives why those hypochondriacs,
Johnson and Byron — it may be, something like the hypochondriac Benito Cereno — took to their hearts, almost to the
exclusion of the entire white race, their serving men, the negroes, Barber and Fletcher. But if there be that in the
negro which exempts him from the inflicted sourness of the morbid or cynical mind, how, in his most prepossessing
aspects, must he appear to a benevolent one? When at ease with respect to exterior things, Captain Delano’s nature was
not only benign, but familiarly and humorously so. At home, he had often taken rare satisfaction in sitting in his
door, watching some free man of color at his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced to have a black sailor, invariably
he was on chatty and half-gamesome terms with him. In fact, like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delano took
to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.

Hitherto, the circumstances in which he found the San Dominick had repressed the tendency. But in the cuddy,
relieved from his former uneasiness, and, for various reasons, more sociably inclined than at any previous period of
the day, and seeing the colored servant, napkin on arm, so debonair about his master, in a business so familiar as that
of shaving, too, all his old weakness for negroes returned.

Among other things, he was amused with an odd instance of the African love of bright colors and fine shows, in the
black’s informally taking from the flag-locker a great piece of bunting of all hues, and lavishly tucking it under his
master’s chin for an apron.

The mode of shaving among the Spaniards is a little different from what it is with other nations. They have a basin,
specifically called a barber’s basin, which on one side is scooped out, so as accurately to receive the chin, against
which it is closely held in lathering; which is done, not with a brush, but with soap dipped in the water of the basin
and rubbed on the face.

In the present instance salt-water was used for lack of better; and the parts lathered were only the upper lip, and
low down under the throat, all the rest being cultivated beard.

The preliminaries being somewhat novel to Captain Delano, he sat curiously eying them, so that no conversation took
place, nor, for the present, did Don Benito appear disposed to renew any.

Setting down his basin, the negro searched among the razors, as for the sharpest, and having found it, gave it an
additional edge by expertly strapping it on the firm, smooth, oily skin of his open palm; he then made a gesture as if
to begin, but midway stood suspended for an instant, one hand elevating the razor, the other professionally dabbling
among the bubbling suds on the Spaniard’s lank neck. Not unaffected by the close sight of the gleaming steel, Don
Benito nervously shuddered; his usual ghastliness was heightened by the lather, which lather, again, was intensified in
its hue by the contrasting sootiness of the negro’s body. Altogether the scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to
Captain Delano, nor, as he saw the two thus postured, could he resist the vagary, that in the black he saw a headsman,
and in the white a man at the block. But this was one of those antic conceits, appearing and vanishing in a breath,
from which, perhaps, the best regulated mind is not always free.

Meantime the agitation of the Spaniard had a little loosened the bunting from around him, so that one broad fold
swept curtain-like over, the chair-arm to the floor, revealing, amid a profusion of armorial bars and ground-colors —
black, blue, and yellow — a closed castle in a blood red field diagonal with a lion rampant in a white.

“The castle and the lion,” exclaimed Captain Delano —“why, Don Benito, this is the flag of Spain you use here. It’s
well it’s only I, and not the King, that sees this,” he added, with a smile, “but”— turning towards the black —“it’s
all one, I suppose, so the colors be gay;” which playful remark did not fail somewhat to tickle the negro.

“Now, master,” he said, readjusting the flag, and pressing the head gently further back into the crotch of the
chair; “now, master,” and the steel glanced nigh the throat.

Again Don Benito faintly shuddered.

“You must not shake so, master. See, Don Amasa, master always shakes when I shave him. And yet master knows I never
yet have drawn blood, though it’s true, if master will shake so, I may some of these times. Now master,” he continued.
“And now, Don Amasa, please go on with your talk about the gale, and all that; master can hear, and, between times,
master can answer.”

“Ah yes, these gales,” said Captain Delano; “but the more I think of your voyage, Don Benito, the more I wonder, not
at the gales, terrible as they must have been, but at the disastrous interval following them. For here, by your
account, have you been these two months and more getting from Cape Horn to St. Maria, a distance which I myself, with a
good wind, have sailed in a few days. True, you had calms, and long ones, but to be becalmed for two months, that is,
at least, unusual. Why, Don Benito, had almost any other gentleman told me such a story, I should have been half
disposed to a little incredulity.”

Here an involuntary expression came over the Spaniard, similar to that just before on the deck, and whether it was
the start he gave, or a sudden gawky roll of the hull in the calm, or a momentary unsteadiness of the servant’s hand,
however it was, just then the razor drew blood, spots of which stained the creamy lather under the throat: immediately
the black barber drew back his steel, and, remaining in his professional attitude, back to Captain Delano, and face to
Don Benito, held up the trickling razor, saying, with a sort of half humorous sorrow, “See, master — you shook so —
here’s Babo’s first blood.”

No sword drawn before James the First of England, no assassination in that timid King’s presence, could have
produced a more terrified aspect than was now presented by Don Benito.

Poor fellow, thought Captain Delano, so nervous he can’t even bear the sight of barber’s blood; and this unstrung,
sick man, is it credible that I should have imagined he meant to spill all my blood, who can’t endure the sight of one
little drop of his own? Surely, Amasa Delano, you have been beside yourself this day. Tell it not when you get home,
sappy Amasa. Well, well, he looks like a murderer, doesn’t he? More like as if himself were to be done for. Well, well,
this day’s experience shall be a good lesson.

Meantime, while these things were running through the honest seaman’s mind, the servant had taken the napkin from
his arm, and to Don Benito had said —“But answer Don Amasa, please, master, while I wipe this ugly stuff off the razor,
and strop it again.”

As he said the words, his face was turned half round, so as to be alike visible to the Spaniard and the American,
and seemed, by its expression, to hint, that he was desirous, by getting his master to go on with the conversation,
considerately to withdraw his attention from the recent annoying accident. As if glad to snatch the offered relief, Don
Benito resumed, rehearsing to Captain Delano, that not only were the calms of unusual duration, but the ship had fallen
in with obstinate currents; and other things he added, some of which were but repetitions of former statements, to
explain how it came to pass that the passage from Cape Horn to St. Maria had been so exceedingly long; now and then,
mingling with his words, incidental praises, less qualified than before, to the blacks, for their general good conduct.
These particulars were not given consecutively, the servant, at convenient times, using his razor, and so, between the
intervals of shaving, the story and panegyric went on with more than usual huskiness.

To Captain Delano’s imagination, now again not wholly at rest, there was something so hollow in the Spaniard’s
manner, with apparently some reciprocal hollowness in the servant’s dusky comment of silence, that the idea flashed
across him, that possibly master and man, for some unknown purpose, were acting out, both in word and deed, nay, to the
very tremor of Don Benito’s limbs, some juggling play before him. Neither did the suspicion of collusion lack apparent
support, from the fact of those whispered conferences before mentioned. But then, what could be the object of enacting
this play of the barber before him? At last, regarding the notion as a whimsy, insensibly suggested, perhaps, by the
theatrical aspect of Don Benito in his harlequin ensign, Captain Delano speedily banished it.

The shaving over, the servant bestirred himself with a small bottle of scented waters, pouring a few drops on the
head, and then diligently rubbing; the vehemence of the exercise causing the muscles of his face to twitch rather
strangely.

His next operation was with comb, scissors, and brush; going round and round, smoothing a curl here, clipping an
unruly whisker-hair there, giving a graceful sweep to the temple-lock, with other impromptu touches evincing the hand
of a master; while, like any resigned gentleman in barber’s hands, Don Benito bore all, much less uneasily, at least
than he had done the razoring; indeed, he sat so pale and rigid now, that the negro seemed a Nubian sculptor finishing
off a white statue-head.

All being over at last, the standard of Spain removed, tumbled up, and tossed back into the flag-locker, the negro’s
warm breath blowing away any stray hair, which might have lodged down his master’s neck; collar and cravat readjusted;
a speck of lint whisked off the velvet lapel; all this being done; backing off a little space, and pausing with an
expression of subdued self-complacency, the servant for a moment surveyed his master, as, in toilet at least, the
creature of his own tasteful hands.

Captain Delano playfully complimented him upon his achievement; at the same time congratulating Don Benito.

But neither sweet waters, nor shampooing, nor fidelity, nor sociality, delighted the Spaniard. Seeing him relapsing
into forbidding gloom, and still remaining seated, Captain Delano, thinking that his presence was undesired just then,
withdrew, on pretense of seeing whether, as he had prophesied, any signs of a breeze were visible.

Walking forward to the main-mast, he stood awhile thinking over the scene, and not without some undefined
misgivings, when he heard a noise near the cuddy, and turning, saw the negro, his hand to his cheek. Advancing, Captain
Delano perceived that the cheek was bleeding. He was about to ask the cause, when the negro’s wailing soliloquy
enlightened him.

“Ah, when will master get better from his sickness; only the sour heart that sour sickness breeds made him serve
Babo so; cutting Babo with the razor, because, only by accident, Babo had given master one little scratch; and for the
first time in so many a day, too. Ah, ah, ah,” holding his hand to his face.

Is it possible, thought Captain Delano; was it to wreak in private his Spanish spite against this poor friend of
his, that Don Benito, by his sullen manner, impelled me to withdraw? Ah this slavery breeds ugly passions in man. —
Poor fellow!

He was about to speak in sympathy to the negro, but with a timid reluctance he now reentered the cuddy.

Presently master and man came forth; Don Benito leaning on his servant as if nothing had happened.

But a sort of love-quarrel, after all, thought Captain Delano.

He accosted Don Benito, and they slowly walked together. They had gone but a few paces, when the steward — a tall,
rajah-looking mulatto, orientally set off with a pagoda turban formed by three or four Madras handkerchiefs wound about
his head, tier on tier — approaching with a saalam, announced lunch in the cabin.

On their way thither, the two captains were preceded by the mulatto, who, turning round as he advanced, with
continual smiles and bows, ushered them on, a display of elegance which quite completed the insignificance of the small
bare-headed Babo, who, as if not unconscious of inferiority, eyed askance the graceful steward. But in part, Captain
Delano imputed his jealous watchfulness to that peculiar feeling which the full-blooded African entertains for the
adulterated one. As for the steward, his manner, if not bespeaking much dignity of self-respect, yet evidenced his
extreme desire to please; which is doubly meritorious, as at once Christian and Chesterfieldian.

Captain Delano observed with interest that while the complexion of the mulatto was hybrid, his physiognomy was
European — classically so.

“Don Benito,” whispered he, “I am glad to see this usher-of-the-golden-rod of yours; the sight refutes an ugly
remark once made to me by a Barbadoes planter; that when a mulatto has a regular European face, look out for him; he is
a devil. But see, your steward here has features more regular than King George’s of England; and yet there he nods, and
bows, and smiles; a king, indeed — the king of kind hearts and polite fellows. What a pleasant voice he has, too?”

“He has, Señor.”

“But tell me, has he not, so far as you have known him, always proved a good, worthy fellow?” said Captain Delano,
pausing, while with a final genuflexion the steward disappeared into the cabin; “come, for the reason just mentioned, I
am curious to know.”

“Francesco is a good man,” a sort of sluggishly responded Don Benito, like a phlegmatic appreciator, who would
neither find fault nor flatter.

“Ah, I thought so. For it were strange, indeed, and not very creditable to us white-skins, if a little of our blood
mixed with the African’s, should, far from improving the latter’s quality, have the sad effect of pouring vitriolic
acid into black broth; improving the hue, perhaps, but not the wholesomeness.”

“Doubtless, doubtless, Señor, but”— glancing at Babo —“not to speak of negroes, your planter’s remark I have heard
applied to the Spanish and Indian intermixtures in our provinces. But I know nothing about the matter,” he listlessly
added.

And here they entered the cabin.

The lunch was a frugal one. Some of Captain Delano’s fresh fish and pumpkins, biscuit and salt beef, the reserved
bottle of cider, and the San Dominick’s last bottle of Canary.

As they entered, Francesco, with two or three colored aids, was hovering over the table giving the last adjustments.
Upon perceiving their master they withdrew, Francesco making a smiling congé, and the Spaniard, without condescending
to notice it, fastidiously remarking to his companion that he relished not superfluous attendance.

Without companions, host and guest sat down, like a childless married couple, at opposite ends of the table, Don
Benito waving Captain Delano to his place, and, weak as he was, insisting upon that gentleman being seated before
himself.

The negro placed a rug under Don Benito’s feet, and a cushion behind his back, and then stood behind, not his
master’s chair, but Captain Delano’s. At first, this a little surprised the latter. But it was soon evident that, in
taking his position, the black was still true to his master; since by facing him he could the more readily anticipate
his slightest want.

“This is an uncommonly intelligent fellow of yours, Don Benito,” whispered Captain Delano across the table.

“You say true, Señor.”

During the repast, the guest again reverted to parts of Don Benito’s story, begging further particulars here and
there. He inquired how it was that the scurvy and fever should have committed such wholesale havoc upon the whites,
while destroying less than half of the blacks. As if this question reproduced the whole scene of plague before the
Spaniard’s eyes, miserably reminding him of his solitude in a cabin where before he had had so many friends and
officers round him, his hand shook, his face became hueless, broken words escaped; but directly the sane memory of the
past seemed replaced by insane terrors of the present. With starting eyes he stared before him at vacancy. For nothing
was to be seen but the hand of his servant pushing the Canary over towards him. At length a few sips served partially
to restore him. He made random reference to the different constitution of races, enabling one to offer more resistance
to certain maladies than another. The thought was new to his companion.

Presently Captain Delano, intending to say something to his host concerning the pecuniary part of the business he
had undertaken for him, especially — since he was strictly accountable to his owners — with reference to the new suit
of sails, and other things of that sort; and naturally preferring to conduct such affairs in private, was desirous that
the servant should withdraw; imagining that Don Benito for a few minutes could dispense with his attendance. He,
however, waited awhile; thinking that, as the conversation proceeded, Don Benito, without being prompted, would
perceive the propriety of the step.

But it was otherwise. At last catching his host’s eye, Captain Delano, with a slight backward gesture of his thumb,
whispered, “Don Benito, pardon me, but there is an interference with the full expression of what I have to say to
you.”

Upon this the Spaniard changed countenance; which was imputed to his resenting the hint, as in some way a reflection
upon his servant. After a moment’s pause, he assured his guest that the black’s remaining with them could be of no
disservice; because since losing his officers he had made Babo (whose original office, it now appeared, had been
captain of the slaves) not only his constant attendant and companion, but in all things his confidant.

After this, nothing more could be said; though, indeed, Captain Delano could hardly avoid some little tinge of
irritation upon being left ungratified in so inconsiderable a wish, by one, too, for whom he intended such solid
services. But it is only his querulousness, thought he; and so filling his glass he proceeded to business.

The price of the sails and other matters was fixed upon. But while this was being done, the American observed that,
though his original offer of assistance had been hailed with hectic animation, yet now when it was reduced to a
business transaction, indifference and apathy were betrayed. Don Benito, in fact, appeared to submit to hearing the
details more out of regard to common propriety, than from any impression that weighty benefit to himself and his voyage
was involved.

Soon, his manner became still more reserved. The effort was vain to seek to draw him into social talk. Gnawed by his
splenetic mood, he sat twitching his beard, while to little purpose the hand of his servant, mute as that on the wall,
slowly pushed over the Canary.

Lunch being over, they sat down on the cushioned transom; the servant placing a pillow behind his master. The long
continuance of the calm had now affected the atmosphere. Don Benito sighed heavily, as if for breath.

“Why not adjourn to the cuddy,” said Captain Delano; “there is more air there.” But the host sat silent and
motionless.

Meantime his servant knelt before him, with a large fan of feathers. And Francesco coming in on tiptoes, handed the
negro a little cup of aromatic waters, with which at intervals he chafed his master’s brow; smoothing the hair along
the temples as a nurse does a child’s. He spoke no word. He only rested his eye on his master’s, as if, amid all Don
Benito’s distress, a little to refresh his spirit by the silent sight of fidelity.

Presently the ship’s bell sounded two o’clock; and through the cabin windows a slight rippling of the sea was
discerned; and from the desired direction.

“There,” exclaimed Captain Delano, “I told you so, Don Benito, look!”

He had risen to his feet, speaking in a very animated tone, with a view the more to rouse his companion. But though
the crimson curtain of the stern-window near him that moment fluttered against his pale cheek, Don Benito seemed to
have even less welcome for the breeze than the calm.

Poor fellow, thought Captain Delano, bitter experience has taught him that one ripple does not make a wind, any more
than one swallow a summer. But he is mistaken for once. I will get his ship in for him, and prove it.

Briefly alluding to his weak condition, he urged his host to remain quietly where he was, since he (Captain Delano)
would with pleasure take upon himself the responsibility of making the best use of the wind.

Upon gaining the deck, Captain Delano started at the unexpected figure of Atufal, monumentally fixed at the
threshold, like one of those sculptured porters of black marble guarding the porches of Egyptian tombs.

But this time the start was, perhaps, purely physical. Atufal’s presence, singularly attesting docility even in
sullenness, was contrasted with that of the hatchet-polishers, who in patience evinced their industry; while both
spectacles showed, that lax as Don Benito’s general authority might be, still, whenever he chose to exert it, no man so
savage or colossal but must, more or less, bow.

Snatching a trumpet which hung from the bulwarks, with a free step Captain Delano advanced to the forward edge of
the poop, issuing his orders in his best Spanish. The few sailors and many negroes, all equally pleased, obediently set
about heading the ship towards the harbor.

While giving some directions about setting a lower stu’n’-sail, suddenly Captain Delano heard a voice faithfully
repeating his orders. Turning, he saw Babo, now for the time acting, under the pilot, his original part of captain of
the slaves. This assistance proved valuable. Tattered sails and warped yards were soon brought into some trim. And no
brace or halyard was pulled but to the blithe songs of the inspirited negroes.

Good fellows, thought Captain Delano, a little training would make fine sailors of them. Why see, the very women
pull and sing too. These must be some of those Ashantee negresses that make such capital soldiers, I’ve heard. But
who’s at the helm. I must have a good hand there.

He went to see.

The San Dominick steered with a cumbrous tiller, with large horizontal pullies attached. At each pully-end stood a
subordinate black, and between them, at the tiller-head, the responsible post, a Spanish seaman, whose countenance
evinced his due share in the general hopefulness and confidence at the coming of the breeze.

He proved the same man who had behaved with so shame-faced an air on the windlass.

“Ah — it is you, my man,” exclaimed Captain Delano —“well, no more sheep’s-eyes now; — look straight forward and
keep the ship so. Good hand, I trust? And want to get into the harbor, don’t you?”

The man assented with an inward chuckle, grasping the tiller-head firmly. Upon this, unperceived by the American,
the two blacks eyed the sailor intently.

Finding all right at the helm, the pilot went forward to the forecastle, to see how matters stood there.

The ship now had way enough to breast the current. With the approach of evening, the breeze would be sure to
freshen.

Having done all that was needed for the present, Captain Delano, giving his last orders to the sailors, turned aft
to report affairs to Don Benito in the cabin; perhaps additionally incited to rejoin him by the hope of snatching a
moment’s private chat while the servant was engaged upon deck.

From opposite sides, there were, beneath the poop, two approaches to the cabin; one further forward than the other,
and consequently communicating with a longer passage. Marking the servant still above, Captain Delano, taking the
nighest entrance — the one last named, and at whose porch Atufal still stood — hurried on his way, till, arrived at the
cabin threshold, he paused an instant, a little to recover from his eagerness. Then, with the words of his intended
business upon his lips, he entered. As he advanced toward the seated Spaniard, he heard another footstep, keeping time
with his. From the opposite door, a salver in hand, the servant was likewise advancing.

Possibly, the vexation might have been something different, were it not for the brisk confidence inspired by the
breeze. But even as it was, he felt a slight twinge, from a sudden indefinite association in his mind of Babo with
Atufal.

“Don Benito,” said he, “I give you joy; the breeze will hold, and will increase. By the way, your tall man and
time-piece, Atufal, stands without. By your order, of course?”

Don Benito recoiled, as if at some bland satirical touch, delivered with such adroit garnish of apparent good
breeding as to present no handle for retort.

He is like one flayed alive, thought Captain Delano; where may one touch him without causing a shrink?

The servant moved before his master, adjusting a cushion; recalled to civility, the Spaniard stiffly replied: “you
are right. The slave appears where you saw him, according to my command; which is, that if at the given hour I am
below, he must take his stand and abide my coming.”

“Ah now, pardon me, but that is treating the poor fellow like an exking indeed. Ah, Don Benito,” smiling, “for all
the license you permit in some things, I fear lest, at bottom, you are a bitter hard master.”

Again Don Benito shrank; and this time, as the good sailor thought, from a genuine twinge of his conscience.

Again conversation became constrained. In vain Captain Delano called attention to the now perceptible motion of the
keel gently cleaving the sea; with lack-lustre eye, Don Benito returned words few and reserved.

By-and-by, the wind having steadily risen, and still blowing right into the harbor bore the San Dominick swiftly on.
Sounding a point of land, the sealer at distance came into open view.

Meantime Captain Delano had again repaired to the deck, remaining there some time. Having at last altered the ship’s
course, so as to give the reef a wide berth, he returned for a few moments below.

I will cheer up my poor friend, this time, thought he.

“Better and better,” Don Benito, he cried as he blithely reentered: “there will soon be an end to your cares, at
least for awhile. For when, after a long, sad voyage, you know, the anchor drops into the haven, all its vast weight
seems lifted from the captain’s heart. We are getting on famously, Don Benito. My ship is in sight. Look through this
side-light here; there she is; all a-taunt-o! The Bachelor’s Delight, my good friend. Ah, how this wind braces one up.
Come, you must take a cup of coffee with me this evening. My old steward will give you as fine a cup as ever any sultan
tasted. What say you, Don Benito, will you?”

At first, the Spaniard glanced feverishly up, casting a longing look towards the sealer, while with mute concern his
servant gazed into his face. Suddenly the old ague of coldness returned, and dropping back to his cushions he was
silent.

“You do not answer. Come, all day you have been my host; would you have hospitality all on one side?”

“I cannot go,” was the response.

“What? it will not fatigue you. The ships will lie together as near as they can, without swinging foul. It will be
little more than stepping from deck to deck; which is but as from room to room. Come, come, you must not refuse
me.”

“I cannot go,” decisively and repulsively repeated Don Benito.

Renouncing all but the last appearance of courtesy, with a sort of cadaverous sullenness, and biting his thin nails
to the quick, he glanced, almost glared, at his guest, as if impatient that a stranger’s presence should interfere with
the full indulgence of his morbid hour. Meantime the sound of the parted waters came more and more gurglingly and
merrily in at the windows; as reproaching him for his dark spleen; as telling him that, sulk as he might, and go mad
with it, nature cared not a jot; since, whose fault was it, pray?

But the foul mood was now at its depth, as the fair wind at its height.

There was something in the man so far beyond any mere unsociality or sourness previously evinced, that even the
forbearing good-nature of his guest could no longer endure it. Wholly at a loss to account for such demeanor, and
deeming sickness with eccentricity, however extreme, no adequate excuse, well satisfied, too, that nothing in his own
conduct could justify it, Captain Delano’s pride began to be roused. Himself became reserved. But all seemed one to the
Spaniard. Quitting him, therefore, Captain Delano once more went to the deck.

The ship was now within less than two miles of the sealer. The whale-boat was seen darting over the interval.

To be brief, the two vessels, thanks to the pilot’s skill, ere long neighborly style lay anchored together.

Before returning to his own vessel, Captain Delano had intended communicating to Don Benito the smaller details of
the proposed services to be rendered. But, as it was, unwilling anew to subject himself to rebuffs, he resolved, now
that he had seen the San Dominick safely moored, immediately to quit her, without further allusion to hospitality or
business. Indefinitely postponing his ulterior plans, he would regulate his future actions according to future
circumstances. His boat was ready to receive him; but his host still tarried below. Well, thought Captain Delano, if he
has little breeding, the more need to show mine. He descended to the cabin to bid a ceremonious, and, it may be,
tacitly rebukeful adieu. But to his great satisfaction, Don Benito, as if he began to feel the weight of that treatment
with which his slighted guest had, not indecorously, retaliated upon him, now supported by his servant, rose to his
feet, and grasping Captain Delano’s hand, stood tremulous; too much agitated to speak. But the good augury hence drawn
was suddenly dashed, by his resuming all his previous reserve, with augmented gloom, as, with half-averted eyes, he
silently reseated himself on his cushions. With a corresponding return of his own chilled feelings, Captain Delano
bowed and withdrew.

He was hardly midway in the narrow corridor, dim as a tunnel, leading from the cabin to the stairs, when a sound, as
of the tolling for execution in some jail-yard, fell on his ears. It was the echo of the ship’s flawed bell, striking
the hour, drearily reverberated in this subterranean vault. Instantly, by a fatality not to be withstood, his mind,
responsive to the portent, swarmed with superstitious suspicions. He paused. In images far swifter than these
sentences, the minutest details of all his former distrusts swept through him.

Hitherto, credulous good-nature had been too ready to furnish excuses for reasonable fears. Why was the Spaniard, so
superfluously punctilious at times, now heedless of common propriety in not accompanying to the side his departing
guest? Did indisposition forbid? Indisposition had not forbidden more irksome exertion that day. His last equivocal
demeanor recurred. He had risen to his feet, grasped his guest’s hand, motioned toward his hat; then, in an instant,
all was eclipsed in sinister muteness and gloom. Did this imply one brief, repentant relenting at the final moment,
from some iniquitous plot, followed by remorseless return to it? His last glance seemed to express a calamitous, yet
acquiescent farewell to Captain Delano forever. Why decline the invitation to visit the sealer that evening? Or was the
Spaniard less hardened than the Jew, who refrained not from supping at the board of him whom the same night he meant to
betray? What imported all those day-long enigmas and contradictions, except they were intended to mystify, preliminary
to some stealthy blow? Atufal, the pretended rebel, but punctual shadow, that moment lurked by the threshold without.
He seemed a sentry, and more. Who, by his own confession, had stationed him there? Was the negro now lying in wait?

The Spaniard behind — his creature before: to rush from darkness to light was the involuntary choice.

The next moment, with clenched jaw and hand, he passed Atufal, and stood unharmed in the light. As he saw his trim
ship lying peacefully at anchor, and almost within ordinary call; as he saw his household boat, with familiar faces in
it, patiently rising and falling, on the short waves by the San Dominick’s side; and then, glancing about the decks
where he stood, saw the oakum-pickers still gravely plying their fingers; and heard the low, buzzing whistle and
industrious hum of the hatchet-polishers, still bestirring themselves over their endless occupation; and more than all,
as he saw the benign aspect of nature, taking her innocent repose in the evening; the screened sun in the quiet camp of
the west shining out like the mild light from Abraham’s tent; as charmed eye and ear took in all these, with the
chained figure of the black, clenched jaw and hand relaxed. Once again he smiled at the phantoms which had mocked him,
and felt something like a tinge of remorse, that, by harboring them even for a moment, he should, by implication, have
betrayed an atheist doubt of the ever-watchful Providence above.

There was a few minutes’ delay, while, in obedience to his orders, the boat was being hooked along to the gangway.
During this interval, a sort of saddened satisfaction stole over Captain Delano, at thinking of the kindly offices he
had that day discharged for a stranger. Ah, thought he, after good actions one’s conscience is never ungrateful,
however much so the benefited party may be.

Presently, his foot, in the first act of descent into the boat, pressed the first round of the side-ladder, his face
presented inward upon the deck. In the same moment, he heard his name courteously sounded; and, to his pleased
surprise, saw Don Benito advancing — an unwonted energy in his air, as if, at the last moment, intent upon making
amends for his recent discourtesy. With instinctive good feeling, Captain Delano, withdrawing his foot, turned and
reciprocally advanced. As he did so, the Spaniard’s nervous eagerness increased, but his vital energy failed; so that,
the better to support him, the servant, placing his master’s hand on his naked shoulder, and gently holding it there,
formed himself into a sort of crutch.

When the two captains met, the Spaniard again fervently took the hand of the American, at the same time casting an
earnest glance into his eyes, but, as before, too much overcome to speak.

I have done him wrong, self-reproachfully thought Captain Delano; his apparent coldness has deceived me: in no
instance has he meant to offend.

Meantime, as if fearful that the continuance of the scene might too much unstring his master, the servant seemed
anxious to terminate it. And so, still presenting himself as a crutch, and walking between the two captains, he
advanced with them towards the gangway; while still, as if full of kindly contrition, Don Benito would not let go the
hand of Captain Delano, but retained it in his, across the black’s body.

Soon they were standing by the side, looking over into the boat, whose crew turned up their curious eyes. Waiting a
moment for the Spaniard to relinquish his hold, the now embarrassed Captain Delano lifted his foot, to overstep the
threshold of the open gangway; but still Don Benito would not let go his hand. And yet, with an agitated tone, he said,
“I can go no further; here I must bid you adieu. Adieu, my dear, dear Don Amasa. Go — go!” suddenly tearing his hand
loose, “go, and God guard you better than me, my best friend.”

Not unaffected, Captain Delano would now have lingered; but catching the meekly admonitory eye of the servant, with
a hasty farewell he descended into his boat, followed by the continual adieus of Don Benito, standing rooted in the
gangway.

Seating himself in the stern, Captain Delano, making a last salute, ordered the boat shoved off. The crew had their
oars on end. The bowsmen pushed the boat a sufficient distance for the oars to be lengthwise dropped. The instant that
was done, Don Benito sprang over the bulwarks, falling at the feet of Captain Delano; at the same time calling towards
his ship, but in tones so frenzied, that none in the boat could understand him. But, as if not equally obtuse, three
sailors, from three different and distant parts of the ship, splashed into the sea, swimming after their captain, as if
intent upon his rescue.

The dismayed officer of the boat eagerly asked what this meant. To which, Captain Delano, turning a disdainful smile
upon the unaccountable Spaniard, answered that, for his part, he neither knew nor cared; but it seemed as if Don Benito
had taken it into his head to produce the impression among his people that the boat wanted to kidnap him. “Or else —
give way for your lives,” he wildly added, starting at a clattering hubbub in the ship, above which rang the tocsin of
the hatchet-polishers; and seizing Don Benito by the throat he added, “this plotting pirate means murder!” Here, in
apparent verification of the words, the servant, a dagger in his hand, was seen on the rail overhead, poised, in the
act of leaping, as if with desperate fidelity to befriend his master to the last; while, seemingly to aid the black,
the three white sailors were trying to clamber into the hampered bow. Meantime, the whole host of negroes, as if
inflamed at the sight of their jeopardized captain, impended in one sooty avalanche over the bulwarks.

All this, with what preceded, and what followed, occurred with such involutions of rapidity, that past, present, and
future seemed one.

Seeing the negro coming, Captain Delano had flung the Spaniard aside, almost in the very act of clutching him, and,
by the unconscious recoil, shifting his place, with arms thrown up, so promptly grappled the servant in his descent,
that with dagger presented at Captain Delano’s heart, the black seemed of purpose to have leaped there as to his mark.
But the weapon was wrenched away, and the assailant dashed down into the bottom of the boat, which now, with
disentangled oars, began to speed through the sea.

At this juncture, the left hand of Captain Delano, on one side, again clutched the half-reclined Don Benito,
heedless that he was in a speechless faint, while his right-foot, on the other side, ground the prostrate negro; and
his right arm pressed for added speed on the after oar, his eye bent forward, encouraging his men to their utmost.

But here, the officer of the boat, who had at last succeeded in beating off the towing sailors, and was now, with
face turned aft, assisting the bowsman at his oar, suddenly called to Captain Delano, to see what the black was about;
while a Portuguese oarsman shouted to him to give heed to what the Spaniard was saying.

Glancing down at his feet, Captain Delano saw the freed hand of the servant aiming with a second dagger — a small
one, before concealed in his wool — with this he was snakishly writhing up from the boat’s bottom, at the heart of his
master, his countenance lividly vindictive, expressing the centred purpose of his soul; while the Spaniard,
half-choked, was vainly shrinking away, with husky words, incoherent to all but the Portuguese.

That moment, across the long-benighted mind of Captain Delano, a flash of revelation swept, illuminating, in
unanticipated clearness, his host’s whole mysterious demeanor, with every enigmatic event of the day, as well as the
entire past voyage of the San Dominick. He smote Babo’s hand down, but his own heart smote him harder. With infinite
pity he withdrew his hold from Don Benito. Not Captain Delano, but Don Benito, the black, in leaping into the boat, had
intended to stab.

Both the black’s hands were held, as, glancing up towards the San Dominick, Captain Delano, now with scales dropped
from his eyes, saw the negroes, not in misrule, not in tumult, not as if frantically concerned for Don Benito, but with
mask torn away, flourishing hatchets and knives, in ferocious piratical revolt. Like delirious black dervishes, the six
Ashantees danced on the poop. Prevented by their foes from springing into the water, the Spanish boys were hurrying up
to the topmost spars, while such of the few Spanish sailors, not already in the sea, less alert, were descried,
helplessly mixed in, on deck, with the blacks.

Meantime Captain Delano hailed his own vessel, ordering the ports up, and the guns run out. But by this time the
cable of the San Dominick had been cut; and the fag-end, in lashing out, whipped away the canvas shroud about the beak,
suddenly revealing, as the bleached hull swung round towards the open ocean, death for the figure-head, in a human
skeleton; chalky comment on the chalked words below, “Follow your leader.”

Upon reaching the sealer, calling for ropes, Captain Delano bound the negro, who made no resistance, and had him
hoisted to the deck. He would then have assisted the now almost helpless Don Benito up the side; but Don Benito, wan as
he was, refused to move, or be moved, until the negro should have been first put below out of view. When, presently
assured that it was done, he no more shrank from the ascent.

The boat was immediately dispatched back to pick up the three swimming sailors. Meantime, the guns were in
readiness, though, owing to the San Dominick having glided somewhat astern of the sealer, only the aftermost one could
be brought to bear. With this, they fired six times; thinking to cripple the fugitive ship by bringing down her spars.
But only a few inconsiderable ropes were shot away. Soon the ship was beyond the gun’s range, steering broad out of the
bay; the blacks thickly clustering round the bowsprit, one moment with taunting cries towards the whites, the next with
upthrown gestures hailing the now dusky moors of ocean — cawing crows escaped from the hand of the fowler.

The first impulse was to slip the cables and give chase. But, upon second thoughts, to pursue with whale-boat and
yawl seemed more promising.

Upon inquiring of Don Benito what firearms they had on board the San Dominick, Captain Delano was answered that they
had none that could be used; because, in the earlier stages of the mutiny, a cabin-passenger, since dead, had secretly
put out of order the locks of what few muskets there were. But with all his remaining strength, Don Benito entreated
the American not to give chase, either with ship or boat; for the negroes had already proved themselves such
desperadoes, that, in case of a present assault, nothing but a total massacre of the whites could be looked for. But,
regarding this warning as coming from one whose spirit had been crushed by misery the American did not give up his
design.

The boats were got ready and armed. Captain Delano ordered his men into them. He was going himself when Don Benito
grasped his arm.

“What! have you saved my life, Señor, and are you now going to throw away your own?”

The officers also, for reasons connected with their interests and those of the voyage, and a duty owing to the
owners, strongly objected against their commander’s going. Weighing their remonstrances a moment, Captain Delano felt
bound to remain; appointing his chief mate — an athletic and resolute man, who had been a privateer’s-man — to head the
party. The more to encourage the sailors, they were told, that the Spanish captain considered his ship good as lost;
that she and her cargo, including some gold and silver, were worth more than a thousand doubloons. Take her, and no
small part should be theirs. The sailors replied with a shout.

The fugitives had now almost gained an offing. It was nearly night; but the moon was rising. After hard, prolonged
pulling, the boats came up on the ship’s quarters, at a suitable distance laying upon their oars to discharge their
muskets. Having no bullets to return, the negroes sent their yells. But, upon the second volley, Indian-like, they
hurtled their hatchets. One took off a sailor’s fingers. Another struck the whale-boat’s bow, cutting off the rope
there, and remaining stuck in the gunwale like a woodman’s axe. Snatching it, quivering from its lodgment, the mate
hurled it back. The returned gauntlet now stuck in the ship’s broken quarter-gallery, and so remained.

The negroes giving too hot a reception, the whites kept a more respectful distance. Hovering now just out of reach
of the hurtling hatchets, they, with a view to the close encounter which must soon come, sought to decoy the blacks
into entirely disarming themselves of their most murderous weapons in a hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly flinging them,
as missiles, short of the mark, into the sea. But, ere long, perceiving the stratagem, the negroes desisted, though not
before many of them had to replace their lost hatchets with handspikes; an exchange which, as counted upon, proved, in
the end, favorable to the assailants.

Meantime, with a strong wind, the ship still clove the water; the boats alternately falling behind, and pulling up,
to discharge fresh volleys.

The fire was mostly directed towards the stern, since there, chiefly, the negroes, at present, were clustering. But
to kill or maim the negroes was not the object. To take them, with the ship, was the object. To do it, the ship must be
boarded; which could not be done by boats while she was sailing so fast.

A thought now struck the mate. Observing the Spanish boys still aloft, high as they could get, he called to them to
descend to the yards, and cut adrift the sails. It was done. About this time, owing to causes hereafter to be shown,
two Spaniards, in the dress of sailors, and conspicuously showing themselves, were killed; not by volleys, but by
deliberate marksman’s shots; while, as it afterwards appeared, by one of the general discharges, Atufal, the black, and
the Spaniard at the helm likewise were killed. What now, with the loss of the sails, and loss of leaders, the ship
became unmanageable to the negroes.

With creaking masts, she came heavily round to the wind; the prow slowly swinging into view of the boats, its
skeleton gleaming in the horizontal moonlight, and casting a gigantic ribbed shadow upon the water. One extended arm of
the ghost seemed beckoning the whites to avenge it.

“Follow your leader!” cried the mate; and, one on each bow, the boats boarded. Sealing-spears and cutlasses crossed
hatchets and hand-spikes. Huddled upon the long-boat amidships, the negresses raised a wailing chant, whose chorus was
the clash of the steel.

For a time, the attack wavered; the negroes wedging themselves to beat it back; the half-repelled sailors, as yet
unable to gain a footing, fighting as troopers in the saddle, one leg sideways flung over the bulwarks, and one
without, plying their cutlasses like carters’ whips. But in vain. They were almost overborne, when, rallying themselves
into a squad as one man, with a huzza, they sprang inboard, where, entangled, they involuntarily separated again. For a
few breaths’ space, there was a vague, muffled, inner sound, as of submerged sword-fish rushing hither and thither
through shoals of black-fish. Soon, in a reunited band, and joined by the Spanish seamen, the whites came to the
surface, irresistibly driving the negroes toward the stern. But a barricade of casks and sacks, from side to side, had
been thrown up by the main-mast. Here the negroes faced about, and though scorning peace or truce, yet fain would have
had respite. But, without pause, overleaping the barrier, the unflagging sailors again closed. Exhausted, the blacks
now fought in despair. Their red tongues lolled, wolf-like, from their black mouths. But the pale sailors’ teeth were
set; not a word was spoken; and, in five minutes more, the ship was won.

Nearly a score of the negroes were killed. Exclusive of those by the balls, many were mangled; their wounds — mostly
inflicted by the long-edged sealing-spears, resembling those shaven ones of the English at Preston Pans, made by the
poled scythes of the Highlanders. On the other side, none were killed, though several were wounded; some severely,
including the mate. The surviving negroes were temporarily secured, and the ship, towed back into the harbor at
midnight, once more lay anchored.

Omitting the incidents and arrangements ensuing, suffice it that, after two days spent in refitting, the ships
sailed in company for Conception, in Chili, and thence for Lima, in Peru; where, before the vice-regal courts, the
whole affair, from the beginning, underwent investigation.

Though, midway on the passage, the ill-fated Spaniard, relaxed from constraint, showed some signs of regaining
health with free-will; yet, agreeably to his own foreboding, shortly before arriving at Lima, he relapsed, finally
becoming so reduced as to be carried ashore in arms. Hearing of his story and plight, one of the many religious
institutions of the City of Kings opened an hospitable refuge to him, where both physician and priest were his nurses,
and a member of the order volunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler, by night and by day.

The following extracts, translated from one of the official Spanish documents, will, it is hoped, shed light on the
preceding narrative, as well as, in the first place, reveal the true port of departure and true history of the San
Dominick’s voyage, down to the time of her touching at the island of St. Maria.

But, ere the extracts come, it may be well to preface them with a remark.

The document selected, from among many others, for partial translation, contains the deposition of Benito Cereno;
the first taken in the case. Some disclosures therein were, at the time, held dubious for both learned and natural
reasons. The tribunal inclined to the opinion that the deponent, not undisturbed in his mind by recent events, raved of
some things which could never have happened. But subsequent depositions of the surviving sailors, bearing out the
revelations of their captain in several of the strangest particulars, gave credence to the rest. So that the tribunal,
in its final decision, rested its capital sentences upon statements which, had they lacked confirmation, it would have
deemed it but duty to reject.

I, DON JOSE DE ABOS AND PADILLA, His Majesty’s Notary for the Royal Revenue, and Register of this Province, and
Notary Public of the Holy Crusade of this Bishopric, etc.

Do certify and declare, as much as is requisite in law, that, in the criminal cause commenced the twenty-fourth of
the month of September, in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, against the negroes of the ship San Dominick,
the following declaration before me was made:

Declaration of the first witness, DON BENITO CERENO.

The same day, and month, and year, His Honor, Doctor Juan Martinez de Rozas, Councilor of the Royal Audience of this
Kingdom, and learned in the law of this Intendency, ordered the captain of the ship San Dominick, Don Benito Cereno, to
appear; which he did, in his litter, attended by the monk Infelez; of whom he received the oath, which he took by God,
our Lord, and a sign of the Cross; under which he promised to tell the truth of whatever he should know and should be
asked; — and being interrogated agreeably to the tenor of the act commencing the process, he said, that on the
twentieth of May last, he set sail with his ship from the port of Valparaiso, bound to that of Callao; loaded with the
produce of the country beside thirty cases of hardware and one hundred and sixty blacks, of both sexes, mostly
belonging to Don Alexandro Aranda, gentleman, of the city of Mendoza; that the crew of the ship consisted of thirty-six
men, beside the persons who went as passengers; that the negroes were in part as follows:

[Here, in the original, follows a list of some fifty names, descriptions, and ages, compiled from certain
recovered documents of Aranda’s, and also from recollections of the deponent, from which portions only are
extracted.]

— One, from about eighteen to nineteen years, named José, and this was the man that waited upon his master, Don
Alexandro, and who speaks well the Spanish, having served him four or five years; . . . a mulatto, named
Francesco, the cabin steward, of a good person and voice, having sung in the Valparaiso churches, native of the
province of Buenos Ayres, aged about thirty-five years. . . . A smart negro, named Dago, who had been for
many years a grave-digger among the Spaniards, aged forty-six years. . . . Four old negroes, born in Africa,
from sixty to seventy, but sound, calkers by trade, whose names are as follows:— the first was named Muri, and he was
killed (as was also his son named Diamelo); the second, Nacta; the third, Yola, likewise killed; the fourth, Ghofan;
and six full-grown negroes, aged from thirty to forty-five, all raw, and born among the Ashantees — Matiluqui, Yan,
Leche, Mapenda, Yambaio, Akim; four of whom were killed; . . . a powerful negro named Atufal, who being
supposed to have been a chief in Africa, his owner set great store by him. . . . And a small negro of
Senegal, but some years among the Spaniards, aged about thirty, which negro’s name was Babo; . . . that he
does not remember the names of the others, but that still expecting the residue of Don Alexandra’s papers will be
found, will then take due account of them all, and remit to the court; . . . and thirty-nine women and
children of all ages.

[The catalogue over, the deposition goes on]

. . . That all the negroes slept upon deck, as is customary in this navigation, and none wore fetters,
because the owner, his friend Aranda, told him that they were all tractable; . . . that on the seventh day
after leaving port, at three o’clock in the morning, all the Spaniards being asleep except the two officers on the
watch, who were the boatswain, Juan Robles, and the carpenter, Juan Bautista Gayete, and the helmsman and his boy, the
negroes revolted suddenly, wounded dangerously the boatswain and the carpenter, and successively killed eighteen men of
those who were sleeping upon deck, some with hand-spikes and hatchets, and others by throwing them alive overboard,
after tying them; that of the Spaniards upon deck, they left about seven, as he thinks, alive and tied, to manoeuvre
the ship, and three or four more, who hid themselves, remained also alive. Although in the act of revolt the negroes
made themselves masters of the hatchway, six or seven wounded went through it to the cockpit, without any hindrance on
their part; that during the act of revolt, the mate and another person, whose name he does not recollect, attempted to
come up through the hatchway, but being quickly wounded, were obliged to return to the cabin; that the deponent
resolved at break of day to come up the companion-way, where the negro Babo was, being the ringleader, and Atufal, who
assisted him, and having spoken to them, exhorted them to cease committing such atrocities, asking them, at the same
time, what they wanted and intended to do, offering, himself, to obey their commands; that notwithstanding this, they
threw, in his presence, three men, alive and tied, overboard; that they told the deponent to come up, and that they
would not kill him; which having done, the negro Babo asked him whether there were in those seas any negro countries
where they might be carried, and he answered them, No; that the negro Babo afterwards told him to carry them to
Senegal, or to the neighboring islands of St. Nicholas; and he answered, that this was impossible, on account of the
great distance, the necessity involved of rounding Cape Horn, the bad condition of the vessel, the want of provisions,
sails, and water; but that the negro Babo replied to him he must carry them in any way; that they would do and conform
themselves to everything the deponent should require as to eating and drinking; that after a long conference, being
absolutely compelled to please them, for they threatened to kill all the whites if they were not, at all events,
carried to Senegal, he told them that what was most wanting for the voyage was water; that they would go near the coast
to take it, and thence they would proceed on their course; that the negro Babo agreed to it; and the deponent steered
towards the intermediate ports, hoping to meet some Spanish, or foreign vessel that would save them; that within ten or
eleven days they saw the land, and continued their course by it in the vicinity of Nasca; that the deponent observed
that the negroes were now restless and mutinous, because he did not effect the taking in of water, the negro Babo
having required, with threats, that it should be done, without fail, the following day; he told him he saw plainly that
the coast was steep, and the rivers designated in the maps were not to be found, with other reasons suitable to the
circumstances; that the best way would be to go to the island of Santa Maria, where they might water easily, it being a
solitary island, as the foreigners did; that the deponent did not go to Pisco, that was near, nor make any other port
of the coast, because the negro Babo had intimated to him several times, that he would kill all the whites the very
moment he should perceive any city, town, or settlement of any kind on the shores to which they should be carried: that
having determined to go to the island of Santa Maria, as the deponent had planned, for the purpose of trying whether,
on the passage or near the island itself, they could find any vessel that should favor them, or whether he could escape
from it in a boat to the neighboring coast of Arruco, to adopt the necessary means he immediately changed his course,
steering for the island; that the negroes Babo and Atufal held daily conferences, in which they discussed what was
necessary for their design of returning to Senegal, whether they were to kill all the Spaniards, and particularly the
deponent; that eight days after parting from the coast of Nasca, the deponent being on the watch a little after
day-break, and soon after the negroes had their meeting, the negro Babo came to the place where the deponent was, and
told him that he had determined to kill his master, Don Alexandro Aranda, both because he and his companions could not
otherwise be sure of their liberty, and that to keep the seamen in subjection, he wanted to prepare a warning of what
road they should be made to take did they or any of them oppose him; and that, by means of the death of Don Alexandro,
that warning would best be given; but, that what this last meant, the deponent did not at the time comprehend, nor
could not, further than that the death of Don Alexandro was intended; and moreover the negro Babo proposed to the
deponent to call the mate Raneds, who was sleeping in the cabin, before the thing was done, for fear, as the deponent
understood it, that the mate, who was a good navigator, should be killed with Don Alexandro and the rest; that the
deponent, who was the friend, from youth, of Don Alexandro, prayed and conjured, but all was useless; for the negro
Babo answered him that the thing could not be prevented, and that all the Spaniards risked their death if they should
attempt to frustrate his will in this matter, or any other; that, in this conflict, the deponent called the mate,
Raneds, who was forced to go apart, and immediately the negro Babo commanded the Ashantee Martinqui and the Ashantee
Lecbe to go and commit the murder; that those two went down with hatchets to the berth of Don Alexandro; that, yet half
alive and mangled, they dragged him on deck; that they were going to throw him overboard in that state, but the negro
Babo stopped them, bidding the murder be completed on the deck before him, which was done, when, by his orders, the
body was carried below, forward; that nothing more was seen of it by the deponent for three days; . . . that
Don Alonzo Sidonia, an old man, long resident at Valparaiso, and lately appointed to a civil office in Peru, whither he
had taken passage, was at the time sleeping in the berth opposite Don Alexandro’s; that awakening at his cries,
surprised by them, and at the sight of the negroes with their bloody hatchets in their hands, he threw himself into the
sea through a window which was near him, and was drowned, without it being in the power of the deponent to assist or
take him up; . . . that a short time after killing Aranda, they brought upon deck his german-cousin, of
middle-age, Don Francisco Masa, of Mendoza, and the young Don Joaquin, Marques de Aramboalaza, then lately from Spain,
with his Spanish servant Ponce, and the three young clerks of Aranda, José Mozairi Lorenzo Bargas, and Hermenegildo
Gandix, all of Cadiz; that Don Joaquin and Hermenegildo Gandix, the negro Babo, for purposes hereafter to appear,
preserved alive; but Don Francisco Masa, José Mozairi, and Lorenzo Bargas, with Ponce the servant, beside the
boatswain, Juan Robles, the boatswain’s mates, Manuel Viscaya and Roderigo Hurta, and four of the sailors, the negro
Babo ordered to be thrown alive into the sea, although they made no resistance, nor begged for anything else but mercy;
that the boatswain, Juan Robles, who knew how to swim, kept the longest above water, making acts of contrition, and, in
the last words he uttered, charged this deponent to cause mass to be said for his soul to our Lady of Succor:
. . . that, during the three days which followed, the deponent, uncertain what fate had befallen the remains
of Don Alexandro, frequently asked the negro Babo where they were, and, if still on board, whether they were to be
preserved for interment ashore, entreating him so to order it; that the negro Babo answered nothing till the fourth
day, when at sunrise, the deponent coming on deck, the negro Babo showed him a skeleton, which had been substituted for
the ship’s proper figure-head — the image of Christopher Colon, the discoverer of the New World; that the negro Babo
asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white’s; that, upon
discovering his face, the negro Babo, coming close, said words to this effect: “Keep faith with the blacks from here to
Senegal, or you shall in spirit, as now in body, follow your leader,” pointing to the prow; . . . that the
same morning the negro Babo took by succession each Spaniard forward, and asked him whose skeleton that was, and
whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white’s; that each Spaniard covered his face; that then to each
the negro Babo repeated the words in the first place said to the deponent; . . . that they (the Spaniards),
being then assembled aft, the negro Babo harangued them, saying that he had now done all; that the deponent (as
navigator for the negroes) might pursue his course, warning him and all of them that they should, soul and body, go the
way of Don Alexandro, if he saw them (the Spaniards) speak, or plot anything against them (the negroes)— a threat which
was repeated every day; that, before the events last mentioned, they had tied the cook to throw him overboard, for it
is not known what thing they heard him speak, but finally the negro Babo spared his life, at the request of the
deponent; that a few days after, the deponent, endeavoring not to omit any means to preserve the lives of the remaining
whites, spoke to the negroes peace and tranquillity, and agreed to draw up a paper, signed by the deponent and the
sailors who could write, as also by the negro Babo, for himself and all the blacks, in which the deponent obliged
himself to carry them to Senegal, and they not to kill any more, and he formally to make over to them the ship, with
the cargo, with which they were for that time satisfied and quieted. . . . But the next day, the more surely
to guard against the sailors’ escape, the negro Babo commanded all the boats to be destroyed but the long-boat, which
was unseaworthy, and another, a cutter in good condition, which knowing it would yet be wanted for towing the water
casks, he had it lowered down into the hold.

. . .

[Various particulars of the prolonged and perplexed navigation ensuing here follow, with incidents of a
calamitous calm, from which portion one passage is extracted, to wit:]

— That on the fifth day of the calm, all on board suffering much from the heat, and want of water, and five having
died in fits, and mad, the negroes became irritable, and for a chance gesture, which they deemed suspicious — though it
was harmless — made by the mate, Raneds, to the deponent in the act of handing a quadrant, they killed him; but that
for this they afterwards were sorry, the mate being the only remaining navigator on board, except the deponent.

. . .

— That omitting other events, which daily happened, and which can only serve uselessly to recall past misfortunes
and conflicts, after seventy-three days’ navigation, reckoned from the time they sailed from Nasca, during which they
navigated under a scanty allowance of water, and were afflicted with the calms before mentioned, they at last arrived
at the island of Santa Maria, on the seventeenth of the month of August, at about six o’clock in the afternoon, at
which hour they cast anchor very near the American ship, Bachelor’s Delight, which lay in the same bay, commanded by
the generous Captain Amasa Delano; but at six o’clock in the morning, they had already descried the port, and the
negroes became uneasy, as soon as at distance they saw the ship, not having expected to see one there; that the negro
Babo pacified them, assuring them that no fear need be had; that straightway he ordered the figure on the bow to be
covered with canvas, as for repairs and had the decks a little set in order; that for a time the negro Babo and the
negro Atufal conferred; that the negro Atufal was for sailing away, but the negro Babo would not, and, by himself, cast
about what to do; that at last he came to the deponent, proposing to him to say and do all that the deponent declares
to have said and done to the American captain; . . . that the negro Babo warned him that if he varied in the
least, or uttered any word, or gave any look that should give the least intimation of the past events or present state,
he would instantly kill him, with all his companions, showing a dagger, which he carried hid, saying something which,
as he understood it, meant that that dagger would be alert as his eye; that the negro Babo then announced the plan to
all his companions, which pleased them; that he then, the better to disguise the truth, devised many expedients, in
some of them uniting deceit and defense; that of this sort was the device of the six Ashantees before named, who were
his bravoes; that them he stationed on the break of the poop, as if to clean certain hatchets (in cases, which were
part of the cargo), but in reality to use them, and distribute them at need, and at a given word he told them; that,
among other devices, was the device of presenting Atufal, his right hand man, as chained, though in a moment the chains
could be dropped; that in every particular he informed the deponent what part he was expected to enact in every device,
and what story he was to tell on every occasion, always threatening him with instant death if he varied in the least:
that, conscious that many of the negroes would be turbulent, the negro Babo appointed the four aged negroes, who were
calkers, to keep what domestic order they could on the decks; that again and again he harangued the Spaniards and his
companions, informing them of his intent, and of his devices, and of the invented story that this deponent was to tell;
charging them lest any of them varied from that story; that these arrangements were made and matured during the
interval of two or three hours, between their first sighting the ship and the arrival on board of Captain Amasa Delano;
that this happened about half-past seven o’clock in the morning, Captain Amasa Delano coming in his boat, and all
gladly receiving him; that the deponent, as well as he could force himself, acting then the part of principal owner,
and a free captain of the ship, told Captain Amasa Delano, when called upon, that he came from Buenos Ayres, bound to
Lima, with three hundred negroes; that off Cape Horn, and in a subsequent fever, many negroes had died; that also, by
similar casualties, all the sea officers and the greatest part of the crew had died.

. . .

[And so the deposition goes on, circumstantially recounting the fictitious story dictated to the deponent by
Babo, and through the deponent imposed upon Captain Delano; and also recounting the friendly offers of Captain Delano,
with other things, but all of which is here omitted. After the fictitious story, etc. the deposition
proceeds:]

. . .

— that the generous Captain Amasa Delano remained on board all the day, till he left the ship anchored at six
o’clock in the evening, deponent speaking to him always of his pretended misfortunes, under the fore-mentioned
principles, without having had it in his power to tell a single word, or give him the least hint, that he might know
the truth and state of things; because the negro Babo, performing the office of an officious servant with all the
appearance of submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent one moment; that this was in order to observe
the deponent’s actions and words, for the negro Babo understands well the Spanish; and besides, there were thereabout
some others who were constantly on the watch, and likewise understood the Spanish; . . . that upon one
occasion, while deponent was standing on the deck conversing with Amasa Delano, by a secret sign the negro Babo drew
him (the deponent) aside, the act appearing as if originating with the deponent; that then, he being drawn aside, the
negro Babo proposed to him to gain from Amasa Delano full particulars about his ship, and crew, and arms; that the
deponent asked “For what?” that the negro Babo answered he might conceive; that, grieved at the prospect of what might
overtake the generous Captain Amasa Delano, the deponent at first refused to ask the desired questions, and used every
argument to induce the negro Babo to give up this new design; that the negro Babo showed the point of his dagger; that,
after the information had been obtained the negro Babo again drew him aside, telling him that that very night he (the
deponent) would be captain of two ships, instead of one, for that, great part of the American’s ship’s crew being to be
absent fishing, the six Ashantees, without any one else, would easily take it; that at this time he said other things
to the same purpose; that no entreaties availed; that, before Amasa Delano’s coming on board, no hint had been given
touching the capture of the American ship: that to prevent this project the deponent was powerless; . . . —
that in some things his memory is confused, he cannot distinctly recall every event; . . . — that as soon as
they had cast anchor at six of the clock in the evening, as has before been stated, the American Captain took leave, to
return to his vessel; that upon a sudden impulse, which the deponent believes to have come from God and his angels, he,
after the farewell had been said, followed the generous Captain Amasa Delano as far as the gunwale, where he stayed,
under pretense of taking leave, until Amasa Delano should have been seated in his boat; that on shoving off, the
deponent sprang from the gunwale into the boat, and fell into it, he knows not how, God guarding him; that —

. . .

[Here, in the original, follows the account of what further happened at the escape, and how the San Dominick was
retaken, and of the passage to the coast; including in the recital many expressions of “eternal gratitude” to the
“generous Captain Amasa Delano.” The deposition then proceeds with recapitulatory remarks, and a partial renumeration
of the negroes, making record of their individual part in the past events, with a view to furnishing, according to
command of the court, the data whereon to found the criminal sentences to be pronounced. From this portion is the
following;]

— That he believes that all the negroes, though not in the first place knowing to the design of revolt, when it was
accomplished, approved it . . . That the negro, José, eighteen years old, and in the personal service of Don
Alexandro, was the one who communicated the information to the negro Babo, about the state of things in the cabin,
before the revolt; that this is known, because, in the preceding midnight, he use to come from his berth, which was
under his master’s, in the cabin, to the deck where the ringleader and his associates were, and had secret
conversations with the negro Babo, in which he was several times seen by the mate; that, one night, the mate drove him
away twice; . . . that this same negro José was the one who, without being commanded to do so by the negro
Babo, as Lecbe and Martinqui were, stabbed his master, Don Alexandro, after be had been dragged half-lifeless to the
deck; . . . that the mulatto steward, Francesco, was of the first band of revolters, that he was, in all
things, the creature and tool of the negro Babo; that, to make his court, he, just before a repast in the cabin,
proposed, to the negro Babo, poisoning a dish for the generous Captain Amasa Delano; this is known and believed,
because the negroes have said it; but that the negro Babo, having another design, forbade Francesco; . . .
that the Ashantee Lecbe was one of the worst of them; for that, on the day the ship was retaken, he assisted in the
defense of her, with a hatchet in each hand, with one of which he wounded, in the breast, the chief mate of Amasa
Delano, in the first act of boarding; this all knew; that, in sight of the deponent, Lecbe struck, with a hatchet, Don
Francisco Masa, when, by the negro Babo’s orders, he was carrying him to throw him overboard, alive, beside
participating in the murder, before mentioned, of Don Alexandro Aranda, and others of the cabin-passengers; that, owing
to the fury with which the Ashantees fought in the engagement with the boats, but this Lecbe and Yan survived; that Yan
was bad as Lecbe; that Yan was the man who, by Babo’s command, willingly prepared the skeleton of Don Alexandro, in a
way the negroes afterwards told the deponent, but which he, so long as reason is left him, can never divulge; that Yan
and Lecbe were the two who, in a calm by night, riveted the skeleton to the bow; this also the negroes told him; that
the negro Babo was he who traced the inscription below it; that the negro Babo was the plotter from first to last; he
ordered every murder, and was the helm and keel of the revolt; that Atufal was his lieutenant in all; but Atufal, with
his own hand, committed no murder; nor did the negro Babo; . . . that Atufal was shot, being killed in the
fight with the boats, ere boarding; . . . that the negresses, of age, were knowing to the revolt, and
testified themselves satisfied at the death of their master, Don Alexandro; that, had the negroes not restrained them,
they would have tortured to death, instead of simply killing, the Spaniards slain by command of the negro Babo; that
the negresses used their utmost influence to have the deponent made away with; that, in the various acts of murder,
they sang songs and danced — not gaily, but solemnly; and before the engagement with the boats, as well as during the
action, they sang melancholy songs to the negroes, and that this melancholy tone was more inflaming than a different
one would have been, and was so intended; that all this is believed, because the negroes have said it. — that of the
thirty-six men of the crew, exclusive of the passengers (all of whom are now dead), which the deponent had knowledge
of, six only remained alive, with four cabin-boys and ship-boys, not included with the crew; . . . — that the
negroes broke an arm of one of the cabin-boys and gave him strokes with hatchets.

[Then follow various random disclosures referring to various periods of time. The following are
extracted;]

— That during the presence of Captain Amasa Delano on board, some attempts were made by the sailors, and one by
Hermenegildo Gandix, to convey hints to him of the true state of affairs; but that these attempts were ineffectual,
owing to fear of incurring death, and, futhermore, owing to the devices which offered contradictions to the true state
of affairs, as well as owing to the generosity and piety of Amasa Delano incapable of sounding such wickedness;
. . . that Luys Galgo, a sailor about sixty years of age, and formerly of the king’s navy, was one of those
who sought to convey tokens to Captain Amasa Delano; but his intent, though undiscovered, being suspected, he was, on a
pretense, made to retire out of sight, and at last into the hold, and there was made away with. This the negroes have
since said; . . . that one of the ship-boys feeling, from Captain Amasa Delano’s presence, some hopes of
release, and not having enough prudence, dropped some chance-word respecting his expectations, which being overheard
and understood by a slave-boy with whom he was eating at the time, the latter struck him on the head with a knife,
inflicting a bad wound, but of which the boy is now healing; that likewise, not long before the ship was brought to
anchor, one of the seamen, steering at the time, endangered himself by letting the blacks remark some expression in his
countenance, arising from a cause similar to the above; but this sailor, by his heedful after conduct, escaped;
. . . that these statements are made to show the court that from the beginning to the end of the revolt, it
was impossible for the deponent and his men to act otherwise than they did; . . . — that the third clerk,
Hermenegildo Gandix, who before had been forced to live among the seamen, wearing a seaman’s habit, and in all respects
appearing to be one for the time; he, Gandix, was killed by a musket ball fired through mistake from the boats before
boarding; having in his fright run up the mizzen-rigging, calling to the boats —“don’t board,” lest upon their boarding
the negroes should kill him; that this inducing the Americans to believe he some way favored the cause of the negroes,
they fired two balls at him, so that he fell wounded from the rigging, and was drowned in the sea; . . . —
that the young Don Joaquin, Marques de Aramboalaza, like Hermenegildo Gandix, the third clerk, was degraded to the
office and appearance of a common seaman; that upon one occasion when Don Joaquin shrank, the negro Babo commanded the
Ashantee Lecbe to take tar and heat it, and pour it upon Don Joaquin’s hands; . . . — that Don Joaquin was
killed owing to another mistake of the Americans, but one impossible to be avoided, as upon the approach of the boats,
Don Joaquin, with a hatchet tied edge out and upright to his hand, was made by the negroes to appear on the bulwarks;
whereupon, seen with arms in his hands and is a questionable altitude, he was shot for a renegade seaman;
. . . — that on the person of Don Joaquin was found secreted a jewel, which, by papers that were discovered,
proved to have been meant for the shrine of our Lady of Mercy in Lima; a votive offering, beforehand prepared and
guarded, to attest his gratitude, when he should have landed in Peru, his last destination, for the safe conclusion of
his entire voyage from Spain; . . . — that the jewel, with the other effects of the late Don Joaquin, is in
the custody of the brethren of the Hospital de Sacerdotes, awaiting the disposition of the honorable court;
. . . — that, owing to the condition of the deponent, as well as the haste in which the boats departed for
the attack, the Americans were not forewarned that there were, among the apparent crew, a passenger and one of the
clerks disguised by the negro Babo; . . . — that, beside the negroes killed in the action, some were killed
after the capture and reanchoring at night, when shackled to the ring-bolts on deck; that these deaths were committed
by the sailors, ere they could be prevented. That so soon as informed of it, Captain Amasa Delano used all his
authority, and, in particular with his own hand, struck down Martinez Gola, who, having found a razor in the pocket of
an old jacket of his, which one of the shackled negroes had on, was aiming it at the negro’s throat; that the noble
Captain Amasa Delano also wrenched from the hand of Bartholomew Barlo a dagger, secreted at the time of the massacre of
the whites, with which he was in the act of stabbing a shackled negro, who, the same day, with another negro, had
thrown him down and jumped upon him; . . . — that, for all the events, befalling through so long a time,
during which the ship was in the hands of the negro Babo, he cannot here give account; but that, what he has said is
the most substantial of what occurs to him at present, and is the truth under the oath which he has taken; which
declaration he affirmed and ratified, after hearing it read to him.

He said that he is twenty-nine years of age, and broken in body and mind; that when finally dismissed by the court,
he shall not return home to Chili, but betake himself to the monastery on Mount Agonia without; and signed with his
honor, and crossed himself, and, for the time, departed as he came, in his litter, with the monk Infelez, to the
Hospital de Sacerdotes.

BENITO CERENO.

DOCTOR ROZAS.

If the Deposition have served as the key to fit into the lock of the complications which precede it, then, as a
vault whose door has been flung back, the San Dominick’s hull lies open today.

Hitherto the nature of this narrative, besides rendering the intricacies in the beginning unavoidable, has more or
less required that many things, instead of being set down in the order of occurrence, should be retrospectively, or
irregularly given; this last is the case with the following passages, which will conclude the account:

During the long, mild voyage to Lima, there was, as before hinted, a period during which the sufferer a little
recovered his health, or, at least in some degree, his tranquillity. Ere the decided relapse which came, the two
captains had many cordial conversations — their fraternal unreserve in singular contrast with former withdrawments.

Again and again it was repeated, how hard it had been to enact the part forced on the Spaniard by Babo.

“Ah, my dear friend,” Don Benito once said, “at those very times when you thought me so morose and ungrateful, nay,
when, as you now admit, you half thought me plotting your murder, at those very times my heart was frozen; I could not
look at you, thinking of what, both on board this ship and your own, hung, from other hands, over my kind benefactor.
And as God lives, Don Amasa, I know not whether desire for my own safety alone could have nerved me to that leap into
your boat, had it not been for the thought that, did you, unenlightened, return to your ship, you, my best friend, with
all who might be with you, stolen upon, that night, in your hammocks, would never in this world have wakened again. Do
but think how you walked this deck, how you sat in this cabin, every inch of ground mined into honey-combs under you.
Had I dropped the least hint, made the least advance towards an understanding between us, death, explosive death —
yours as mine — would have ended the scene.”

“Nay, my friend,” rejoined the Spaniard, courteous even to the point of religion, “God charmed your life, but you
saved mine. To think of some things you did — those smilings and chattings, rash pointings and gesturings. For less
than these, they slew my mate, Raneds; but you had the Prince of Heaven’s safe-conduct through all ambuscades.”

“Yes, all is owing to Providence, I know: but the temper of my mind that morning was more than commonly pleasant,
while the sight of so much suffering, more apparent than real, added to my good-nature, compassion, and charity,
happily interweaving the three. Had it been otherwise, doubtless, as you hint, some of my interferences might have
ended unhappily enough. Besides, those feelings I spoke of enabled me to get the better of momentary distrust, at times
when acuteness might have cost me my life, without saving another’s. Only at the end did my suspicions get the better
of me, and you know how wide of the mark they then proved.”

“Wide, indeed,” said Don Benito, sadly; “you were with me all day; stood with me, sat with me, talked with me,
looked at me, ate with me, drank with me; and yet, your last act was to clutch for a monster, not only an innocent man,
but the most pitiable of all men. To such degree may malign machinations and deceptions impose. So far may even the
best man err, in judging the conduct of one with the recesses of whose condition he is not acquainted. But you were
forced to it; and you were in time undeceived. Would that, in both respects, it was so ever, and with all men.”

“You generalize, Don Benito; and mournfully enough. But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See,
yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves.”

“Because they have no memory,” he dejectedly replied; “because they are not human.”

“But these mild trades that now fan your cheek, do they not come with a human-like healing to you? Warm friends,
steadfast friends are the trades.”

“With their steadfastness they but waft me to my tomb, Señor,” was the foreboding response.

“You are saved,” cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; “you are saved: what has cast such a
shadow upon you?”

“The negro.”

There was silence, while the moody man sat, slowly and unconsciously gathering his mantle about him, as if it were a
pall.

There was no more conversation that day.

But if the Spaniard’s melancholy sometimes ended in muteness upon topics like the above, there were others upon
which he never spoke at all; on which, indeed, all his old reserves were piled. Pass over the worst, and, only to
elucidate let an item or two of these be cited. The dress, so precise and costly, worn by him on the day whose events
have been narrated, had not willingly been put on. And that silver-mounted sword, apparent symbol of despotic command,
was not, indeed, a sword, but the ghost of one. The scabbard, artificially stiffened, was empty.

As for the black — whose brain, not body, had schemed and led the revolt, with the plot — his slight frame,
inadequate to that which it held, had at once yielded to the superior muscular strength of his captor, in the boat.
Seeing all was over, he uttered no sound, and could not be forced to. His aspect seemed to say, since I cannot do
deeds, I will not speak words. Put in irons in the hold, with the rest, he was carried to Lima. During the passage, Don
Benito did not visit him. Nor then, nor at any time after, would he look at him. Before the tribunal he refused. When
pressed by the judges he fainted. On the testimony of the sailors alone rested the legal identity of Babo.

Some months after, dragged to the gibbet at the tail of a mule, the black met his voiceless end. The body was burned
to ashes; but for many days, the head, that hive of subtlety, fixed on a pole in the Plaza, met, unabashed, the gaze of
the whites; and across the Plaza looked towards St. Bartholomew’s church, in whose vaults slept then, as now, the
recovered bones of Aranda: and across the Rimac bridge looked towards the monastery, on Mount Agonia without; where,
three months after being dismissed by the court, Benito Cereno, borne on the bier, did, indeed, follow his leader.

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